By: Sarah Liu

There are 30 million smokers in the United States. It has been known for decades that smoking causes cancer and heart disease. Tobacco, in particular, contains over 7,000 chemicals that become harmful when inhaled. What’s keeping users in for more is nicotine.

Nicotine increases adrenaline and produces dopamine, the chemical our brain uses to feel relaxed. Because the effects only last for so long, some smokers need over a dozen hits each day. The result has taken almost 500,000 lives each year.

But soon, smokers could see lowered nicotine levels in their products which the Food and Drug Administration announced back in June. The idea sounds promising, but it won’t work as swiftly as it sounds.

Most smokers would turn to less harmful amounts of nicotine from vaping or nicotine gum. Others may turn to illegal ways of possessing their normalized dose of the chemical. The tobacco industry would take a hit and at the end of the day, decreasing nicotine to non-addictive levels would be one thing that a country has never done.

If the levels begin to reduce, scientists must be careful about how much. Eric Donny, a tobacco expert at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, says 95 percent is the maximum reduction in nicotine to smoke less, as anything higher can lead to the user smoking more. “When you get the nicotine in tobacco low enough, you just can’t get enough nicotine to maintain the dependence,” Dr. Donny said.

If all goes well, “it may help newer smokers, but it will hurt people who are used to a certain level of nicotine,” says a longtime smoker. 70 percent of smokers say they would like to quit, but only 10 percent succeed. Nicotine is a powerful chemical making it the most potent factor that restricts smokers from quitting. Though the F.D.A is considering lowering nicotine levels, tobacco companies may not comply, and users may not benefit as well as expected.