Are Prohibitionists About to Revisit the Law of Unintended Consequences –This Time With Tobacco?

Jeffrey A. SingerThe Wall Street Journalreports this afternoon that the Biden administration is considering ordering cigarette makers to lower nicotine to non ‐​addictive levels in tobacco cigarettes. It is also considering banning menthol cigarettes, which are popular among young people and are particularlypopular with African American smokers. What could possibly go wrong?First, there is reason to fear that cigarette smokers will increase the number of cigarettes they consume tocompensate for the decrease in the desired effects of nicotine. Cutting the nicotine yield might have the unintended consequence of smokers taking more puffs, inhaling more deeply, and holding the smoke in longer. While nicotine is addictive, the tars in tobacco smoke are what do all of the damage to health. Reducing nicotine content might paradoxically make smokingmore dangerous.As public health professor Michael Siegel oncepointed out:By focusing on increases in nicotine yields as if they are necessarily harmful to public health, anti ‐​smoking groups are implying that decreases in nicotine yields would be a good thing. But the truth is that reduced nicotine yields could be harmful to public health because they would likely increase cigarette consumption (due to compensation), leading to increased tar delivery and higher rates of lung and other cancers as well as chronic lung disease.Then, of course, there ’s the matter ofprohibition, and its associated violence. It seems the po...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs