An attempt to increase the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products influence over products that contain nicotine has begun! HR 6086 was a law introduced by the House of Representatives that seeks to alter the definition of “tobacco products” to include items made from synthetic nicotine or without nicotine.
Representative Mikie Sherrill, a representative from New Jersey who introduced the Bill, claimed that the Bill will be a way to shut down “a loophole allowing bad actors in the vaping industry to evade [FDA] regulations and sell nicotine products targeted at children.” The Bill is co-sponsored by Utah Republican Representative Chris Stewart and Illinois Democrat Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi.
In the end, the Bill will change the Center for Tobacco Products’ responsibility away from regulating tobacco and more toward the regulation of nicotine’s addictiveness. Additional laws that treat all nicotine the same as tobacco are a move away from embracing harm reduction.
Certain plants that produce tobacco also produce nicotine. Nicotine is a substance plants use to protect themselves. It was also employed as a pesticide. There are small amounts of nicotine in the majority of food items belonging to the family Solanaceae, such as eggplants, tomatoes, and potatoes.
HR 6286 grants an exemption from the lower levels of nicotine in plants that haven’t been genetically modified to produce more nicotine. The idea of extracting nicotine from non-tobacco plants is a thought, but it’s likely to be difficult to achieve due to the small amount of nicotine the plants that do not produce tobacco produce. Nicotine that is produced by plants that have been bred or modified in order to make more nicotine could be included under the Bill, too.
The Bill was introduced. However, there isn’t a timetable in place for the hearings regarding this Bill. You can track the development of the Bill here. You can also get the complete version of the Bill on this page.
