Health experts say axing plan to block sales of tobacco products to next generation will cost thousands of lives
They aren’t removing all the nicotine. They were just cutting down how much each cigarette has. So for a smoker to get their nicotine fix, they’d have to smoke three times as many cigarettes.
It’s still tobacco at the end of the day, you can’t remove all of the nicotine because it occurs naturally. It occurs in many other plants too, but in levels which doesn’t inspire any motivation to remove it. In the same way I think delineating between elimination and reduction of nicotine is a moot point. Smoking is not pleasant, and every smoker has overcome this unpleasantness to become nicotine addicts. There is no reason other than nicotine why it continues to propagate in all countries and cultures today. And with nicotine-reduced cigarettes, smokers must simultaneously engage with that unpleasantness more, and still come to terms with diminished returns vs. the nicotine they previously ingested from 1 cigarette.
As for the amount the nicotine can be reduced by, I’ve seen a wide range of estimates from 50% to 90+%. I don’t think we’ll ever really know what’s reasonable and scalable without any such product actually on the market.
If the idea is reducing it to the point where smokers don’t think it’s worth it to smoke anymore, then just ban them. Otherwise you absolutely will have people who will smoke 3-4x more to get their original fix. Or they’ll take deeper draws and hold it longer like people did when lights were introduced (there were studies on this)
Without taking away from your point, I’ll point out that you’re comparing hypothetical isolated cases of pointless and fruitless self-harm to a supposed reduction in tobacco harm generally, which is one of the leading causes of premature death globally, and is also fully preventable (while the actions of irrational persons is not generally preventable). I think the side you land on has more to do with one’s politics generally than the actual issue. Does “do no harm” take priority if the consequence is “generally more death”?
No reason other than nicotine
It’s not just nicotine though. Effects of MAO inhibition and a combination of minor alkaloids, β-carbolines, and acetaldehyde on nicotine self-administration…
We don’t know the full role Tobacco specific Nitrosamines and other alkaloids play, but it’s there.
“Their fix” is based on whatever dosage they’re already used to. There’s not some fixed upper bound that everyone achieves after their first cigarette.
Making cigarettes less addictive would make new addicts less addicted.
If we doubled the nicotine per cigarette, d’ya figure they’d all smoke half as many?
