OREANDA-NEWS  The Joe Biden administration may mandate tobacco companies to reduce the nicotine content of cigarettes to a level where smoking is not addictive. At the same time, menthol cigarettes can be completely banned.

The US Food and Drug Administration is due to make a decision on the ban of meth cigarettes by April 29 in response to a petition. Now the US administration is considering different options for action: to introduce a ban on menthol cigarettes, to demand a reduction in the level of nicotine in cigarettes, or to take both measures at once. This information is reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The publication notes that the implementation of these bans will take years, legal problems may arise. According to US statistics, menthol cigarettes account for about a third of the 226 billion cigarettes sold annually in the country and are particularly popular with teenage and African American smokers.

Shares of Marlboro maker Altria Group fell more than 6% after news of the discussion of these measures in the US administration.

According to the FDA, nicotine itself does not cause cancer, heart disease or lung disease, but it makes people addicted to cigarettes, which causes 480,000 deaths in the United States each year. The FDA has been discussing a decline in the nicotine content of cigarettes since the 1990s. In 2009, the Tobacco Control Act authorized the FDA to authorize such a change, but based on scientific evidence. The law also banned the addition of candy, fruit and spice flavors to cigarettes due to their potential appeal to children.