Biden admin working on effective cigarette ban is proposing ‘gift’ to cartels at 11th hour, expert says

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is moving forward with a regulatory rule in the the final days of the Biden administration that would effectively ban cigarettes currently on the market in favor of products with lower nicotine levels, which could ultimately boost the business of black market cartels, a Fox News Digital expert says.

“Biden’s ban is a gift with a bow and balloons organized crime cartels with him, be it cartels, Chinese organized crime or the Russian mafia. It’s going to keep America smoking and it’s going to make the streets even more violent,” Rich Marianos, former assistant director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and current president of the Tobacco Law Enforcement Network, told Fox News.

The FDA confirmed to Fox Digital on Monday that as of Jan. 3, the Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Levels in Certain Tobacco Products had completed a regulatory review, but that the proposed rule had not yet been finalized.

“The proposed rule, ‘Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Levels in Certain Tobacco Products,’ appears in the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) ROCIS system as having completed a regulatory review on January 3,” an FDA spokesperson told Fox Digital . “As FDA has previously said, the proposed product standard for determining maximum levels of nicotine to reduce dependence on cigarettes and certain other burnt tobacco productswhen completed, it is estimated to be among the most impactful grassroots actions in the history of US tobacco regulation. At this time, the FDA cannot make any further comments pending publication.”

Fox New Digital reached out The white house regarding concerns about the proposal should it go into effect, but received no response.

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Former President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009, which gave the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products. In the years since, the agency has worked to lower nicotine levels, including in July 2017 under the Trump administration, when then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced he would require tobacco companies to drastically reduce nicotine in cigarettes in an effort to help adult smokers quit. smoke.

In 2022, the FDA under the Biden administration announced plans for a proposed rule to lower nicotine levels to make them less addictive or non-addictive.

“Reducing nicotine levels to minimally addictive or non-addictive levels would reduce the likelihood that future generations of young people will become addicted to cigarettes and help more currently addicted smokers quit,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said at the time.

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Lowering nicotine levels in regular cigarettes and other tobacco products would open the door to illegal tobacco trade in the U.S., Marianos told Fox News Digital.

“This decision is thrown down the throat of the public without any thought or preparation. No one was sitting down with law enforcementnobody talked to the doctors, nobody talked to any regulators to find out, ‘Hey, look, what are the unintended consequences of making such a bad choice,’ and that’s what I’m going to call it, a bad choice,” Marianos said.

He explained that Mexican cartels are well positioned to move illegal tobacco across the border, as they do with substances like fentanyl that have ravaged communities across the U.S., while Chinese criminal organizations they have some of the best counterfeiting operations ranging from baby formula to cigarettes, and Russian organized crime groups have a foothold in cities across the country, including bodegas and other shops that sell tobacco products.

Marianos said criminal groups are likely to quickly seize on the proposal if it goes into effect and subsequently boost their tobacco operations – which he says will serve as an economic boon for criminals.

Americans who want to buy cigarettes with higher nicotine levels would then have to go through illegal channels to obtain them, similar to buying “loosie” cigarettes on the streets of New York, exposing average Americans to additional criminal risk while offering them unregulated, foreign-sourced cigarettes people.

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Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have already warned that the tobacco trade in the US poses a serious threat to national security and has already come into question.

“In 2015, the State Department cited the activities of terrorist groups and criminal networks that used tobacco operations to finance other crimes, including ‘money laundering, cash smuggling, and trafficking in people, arms, drugs, antiquities, diamonds, and counterfeit goods,’ ” Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.; and then Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., wrote in a 2023 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

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“Recent public reporting has also noted these financial links between Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) involved in narcotics and fentanyl trafficking, and these tobacco smuggling activities. Mexican TCOs pose a serious threat to U.S. national security and public health.”

Marianos added that aside from the criminal effect on America and its residents, reducing nicotine levels would also defeat the stated mission of weaning smokers off cigarettes and instead lead to an increase in smoking.

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“You’re going to create more smoking. And I thought that’s what we’re trying to get away from, right? Smoking is bad. I thought we were trying to do everything possible to get away from it and make the country safer . . . Well, if you reduce nicotine level, it’s proven. All you have to do is drive around here in DC and see workers on a smoke break,” he said, saying they work. productivity will even be reduced as people take more smoke breaks in the alleys to get used to nicotine.

The Biden administration previously tried to outright ban menthol cigarettes, described as a “critical” part of President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative, but announced last year that it was abruptly delaying such regulations amid public condemnation of the move. Several groups argued that the menthol ban unfairly targeted minority communities, while others argued that the ban would open the door to illicit menthol sales.