Forest's response to FDA announcement on lowering nicotine levels in combustible cigarettes

Fri 28th July, 2017

Responding to the announcement that the US Food and Drug Administration aims to cut nicotine levels in cigarettes, Forest director Simon Clark, said:

"The FDA assumes wrongly that people only smoke for the nicotine.

"There are numerous reasons people start smoking or continue to smoke and nicotine is only one of them.

"If smoking was just about the nicotine hit the overwhelming majority of smokers would have switched to safer alternatives such as electronic cigarettes.

"What many people like most about smoking is the ritual and the taste and smell of tobacco. Lowering nicotine levels won't change that."

A recent survey of over 600 smokers by the Centre for Substance Use Research in Glasgow found that nearly all respondents (95%) gave pleasure as their primary reason for smoking, with 35% suggesting that smoking was part of their identity.

Well over half (62%) liked the physical effect of nicotine, 55% liked the way smoking provided “time for oneself”, 52% liked the taste or smell of tobacco, and 49% liked the ritual involved in smoking.

Most of those surveyed (77%) expected to smoke for many years with only 5% envisaging a time in the near future when they might have stopped.

Although a majority (56%) felt that they were addicted to smoking, many described the habit as a personal choice rather than behaviour determined by their dependence on nicotine.

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