Will Biden Ram Through Disastrous New Prohibition Policy?

In an act that, if confirmed, would be unprecedented in its hubris and disastrous public policy effects, it is being reported that President Biden’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will shortly announce a new rule effectively banning virtually all cigarettes currently for sale in the United States.

To say that introducing such a significant policy days before a new Administration is a disgraceful violation of every principle of good governance would be an understatement. But even worse is the public policy disaster that this rule would unleash.

As Americans for Tax Reform has written extensively about previously, introducing prohibition would not only deny American consumers choice, it would destroy businesses, devastate local, state, and federal revenue, harm law-enforcement, empower international criminal syndicates through the creation of the world’s largest black market, and all the while do nothing to protect public health. To the contrary, the scientific consensus on the health effects of a policy to only allow “very low nicotine” cigarettes on the market is that it would harm people’s health.

The primary health risks associated with smoking stem from the combustion process, which produces thousands of toxic compounds, not nicotine itself (ironically, the proposed low-nicotine standard would ban the only component in cigarettes that is not inherently harmful). By forcing individuals to consume more cigarettes to achieve their desired nicotine levels, this policy would exacerbate health problems rather than alleviating them.

There is no justification for introducing de facto cigarette prohibition particularly when the free market has been so successful at providing alternatives to help smokers quit at record levels. Rather than bringing back the failed prohibitionist policies of the past, policy-makers should accept the evidence, and embrace tobacco harm reduction policies based on evidence not ideology. New technologies such as personal vaporizers, nicotine pouches, and heat not burn devices, have been proven 95% safer than combustible cigarettes, and effective at helping smokers quit.

If President Biden seeks to use his last days in office to bring prohibition, which everything we know from history tells us will be an abject failure with horrific consequences, it should be a priority of the incoming Trump Administration to reverse this on day one.