By: Audrey Wang

Most people understand addiction – at first, you feel fine, but then, you cannot stop. Then like chains – you cannot escape, and if you break the connection, you can suffer a deadly backlash. This June, F.D.A scientists have found a way to reduce the amount nicotine in a cigarette, a plan with both pros and cons.

In the United States alone, there are about thirty million smokers. In the not-too-distant future, they could find that the cigarettes they purchase from gas stations, convenience stores and smokes shops only contain tiny amounts of nicotine. This is the F.D. A’s plan. To lower the amount of nicotine in regular cigars by 95 percent immediately.

These plans have inched closer to becoming real this June, when the F.D.A said that cutting nicotine levels could contribute to better public health. Addiction and drug related health impacts cause 480,000 deaths on average every year. The set time for introducing a reduced nicotine cigar is set for the May of 2023. Several federally funded studies have found that cutting nicotine levels to 5 percent in cigars is the most immediate and effective way to stop the habit.

Despite the set date, it could take years before the new policy has any impact. The proposal could also be rejected by the tobacco industry. But despite these possibilities, health experts insist that any effort to decrease nicotine levels would be revolutionizing, as this has never been done by any other country.

This plan has both pros and cons. On one hand, decreasing these levels may help limit the access to tobacco’s 7,000 chemicals, which are harmful when inhaled or burnt. This is what causes the addiction. Nicotine stimulates adrenaline in the brain, causing an indirect production of dopamine, a chemical that causes a sensation of relaxation. But this feeling is short-lived, which causes heavy smokers to smoke a dozen cigars or more per day.

But on the other hand, lowering these drug levels will cause addicts to smoke more low-nicotine cigars. “When you get the nicotine in tobacco low enough, you can’t get enough nicotine to maintain the dependence,” Eric Donny, a tobacco expert at Wake Forest University School of Medicine said. “Smoking more creates adverse effects, like nausea, because the lungs can only handle so much of a burned substance.”

Another problem with lowering the nicotine levels in cigars is the backlash. Even researchers who supported the act to cut these drugs say that any effort to lower nicotine percentages would be extremely hard. Even among the 70 percent who say that they would like to stop smoking, heavy smokers would still smoke many, many low-nicotine cigars to achieve the same dose they used to receive. One in ten adults who attempted to quit smoking succeed, proving that the drug not only is very addictive, but also the limitations of nicotine replacement therapy.

Addiction is terrifying. It can take many important things and people from your life. Passing this policy has its own impacts on society, both good and bad. In the future, a better treatment for smoking may be found. But much research is still needed. Perhaps it is still too early to look for a way to stop nicotine addiction.