Exclusive: a response to the recent New York Times article about accelerating approval of harm reduction products

A first for the Tobacco Endgame – new content not published elsewhere!

I agree that the FDA should evaluate new tobacco product applications in a timely manner. But I also believe that the FDA should strengthen enforcement of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938 by removing unauthorized tobacco products like disposable vaping products and certain oral nicotine pouches that are unlawfully sold across America.  In 2019, San Francisco Supervisor Shamann Walton and I led the effort to force Juul to comply with existing laws that had been flouted for years. Over the past decade, Big Tobacco has shifted to smokeless tobacco products that do not involve combustion, invoking the harm reduction principle that these are “safer” than cigarettes.  But “safer” does not mean “safe”, and if the tobacco industry truly believed their newer products were better, they should scale back the number of cigarettes manufactured in proportion to the new products authorized for sale. This principle of the “sinking lid” could transition to a world where combustible cigarettes are eventually no longer sold globally.