Those of us in my (somewhat dormant) thread Is Nicotine Addiction a Pediatric Disease? all appear to agree that nicotine is addictive, and that the overwhelming majority of addicted smokers pick up their habit in adolescence or pre-adolescence. Furthermore, because teens and preteens are far less capable of understanding the consequences of their actions–and, specifically, what it means to be addicted–than are adults, the notion that most smokers voluntarily chose their addiction kinda goes out the window. Even if a teen knows cigarettes cause cancer, they don’t see the decision to start smoking as the life-altering one that it clearly is. David Kessler’s got a line in his book (A Question of Intent, mentioned on the other thread) where he quotes a forty-year-old woman saying, essentially, “I didn’t choose to get addicted to cigarettes. A naive college freshman made the choice for me twenty-three years ago.”
What’s more, the nicotine levels present in cigarettes are manipulable. The tobacco industry has done extensive research both on putting nicotine into a cigarette and taking it out–the latter process, apparently, being analogous to decaffeinating coffee beans. With that being said, then, and with the twin premises (which y’all can challenge if you like) that a) the continuing addiction of teenagers to nicotine poses a serious public health problem and b) greater enforcement of existing laws prohibiting the purchase/possession/use of tobacco products by minors will not do enough to stem the tide of youth smokers, what are the pros and cons of a regulatory scheme (or voluntary initiative on the part of the industry) by which tobacco companies are directed to lower progressively the nicotine levels found in their cigarettes? Say, three percent this year, two and a half percent next year, etc.–with the intention of finding a threshold level at which addiction no longer occurred (and with no ultimate goal of total prohibition of tobacco).
I speak as an as yet unrepentant smoker. Nicotine obviously gives a desirable rush that causes one to continue an activity that is known to be harmful. Unless totally outlawed, smokers are going to opt for nicotine containing cigarettes over your proposed placebos. Introducing a non-addictive “teen” cigarette might be an option. I’m sure the tobacco companies would be thrilled with the idea. It doesn’t sound like a very positive message and good luck getting that one allowed. All in all it sounds like a pretty bad idea. The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t take long to become addicted to cigarettes and the vast majority of smokers have already been addicted for a heck of a long time. It would actually be beneficial to smokers to have cigarettes fortified with additional nicotine thus satisfying their craving for a longer duration and causing them to ingest less overall tar. It is unfortuneatly illegal for tobacco companies to do so for the very reasons you cite; the potential for novice users to become addicted.
Why would the tobacco industry do this voluntarily? And if a law is passed requiring them to do so, why not just make cigarettes illegal? Either way, the government would be telling people what they can and can not do. I’m not understanding how forcing the tobacco companies to take the nicotene out of cigarettes (or getting them to volunteer to do so) is any better than forcing them to stop making cigarettes altogether (or getting them to volunteer to do so).
In fact, it would be worse, because people would be forced to smoke more cigarettes in order to ingest the same amount of nicotene, rendering smoking an even more dangerous habit than it already is. People who can’t seem to go more than an hour or two between cigarettes are annoying enough; if we reduce the amount of nicotene in each cigarette, they’ll be lighting up even more often. And you haven’t provided any evidence that lowering nicotene levels would result in fewer people developing a smoking habit. Just hoping it might happen isn’t a good enough reason.
Absolutely correct (though it’s “nicotine,” not “nicotene!”). I recall a study some years ago (can’t find a cite, alas, so you’ll just have to trust my memory) that looked at the health of people who smoked “light” cigarettes, and found that they were suffering from lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease, etc., at the same rates as people who smoked “regular” cigarettes.
What they discovered, of course, was that the smokers of “light” cigarettes, in order to get their nicotine fix, were smoking more, sucking the smoke deeper into their lungs, and holding it in their lungs longer.
The only reason they weren’t even sicker than the smokers of “regular” cigarettes was that the low-nicotine cigarettes are also lower in tar, so the net effect was almost a wash.
Ideally, wouldn’t lowering the nicotine in cigarettes result in the current generation of smokers smoking more, while there would be less of a chance of future generations becoming addicted? Assuming that’s the course we’re trying to take, I don’t really see the problem in it. It increases tax revenues, and (presumably) allows for less smokers in the future. Short of a law being passed, of course, I seriously doubt that cigarette companies would institute such a program of their own free will. It would be tantamount to suicide for the company, or that division in the case of RJR, wouldn’t it?
On another note, I didn’t think parenthetical references had to necessarily be full sentences. In that case, doesn’t that mean that Early Out’s statement was perfectly correct from a grammatical point of view? Without the reference, all s/he said was “Absolutely correct.” Nothing wrong with that.
Let me point out again that there is no evidence that lowering nicotine levels will reduce addiction. Beer has less alcohol than vodka, but many beer drinkers become alcoholics; they just drink more of it.
“Absolutely correct.” is a sentence fragment. And I’m guessing that you realize “Nothing wrong with that.” is also a sentence fragment, and were just being ironic.
I’m not actually bothered by sentence fragments; I was just making the point that picayune corrections to other people’s posts are silly.
Y’all make some good points, although I’ve seen it suggested that there’s a tolerance level past which people won’t smoke more cigarettes to compensate for lower amounts of nicotine. That is, let’s say that if cigarettes had x amount of nicotine, a normal smoker would smoke one cigarette every hour. And if they had x/2, they would smoke two cigarettes every hour. But if they had x/6, the person wouldn’t smoke six cigarettes every hour. There’s a point at which they wouldn’t care about compensating exactly for the nicotine they’re used to, for the simple reason that they’re sick of smoking cigarettes.
Anyway. This proposal is more geared down the road at beginning smokers, rather than existing smokers. The theory is that, as I mentioned in the OP, there’s a threshold level of nicotine content below which someone won’t get addicted if they start to smoke. (And, because they’re starting, they’d have no preexisting nicotine addiction causing them to smoke more to get the same effect.) Therefore, if all cigarettes had less and less nicotine content, you’d eventually get to the point where new smokers weren’t becoming addicted if they made the choice to smoke. One that data bore that out, you normalize the nicotine level at that point and, presumably, a generation or two later no one’s addicted to nicotine at all.
I understand what you’re saying; the point about already-addicted people having to smoke more cigarettes is an undesirable side-effect, which may or may not be worth it if we could stop addiction in the first place. The thing is, I’m not seeing that it would stop addiction in the first place. Is this really a theory, or is it more like wishful thinking? To say that we can find this “threshold level” assumes that such a threshold exists. And to say that we will discover the “threshold” by lowering the nicotine content until it manifests itself is putting the cart before the horse. It’s like launching a rocket to find Planet Q, when there’s no reason to believe that Planet Q even exists.
