There is no drug like nicotine. When it enters your bloodstream, you'll feel a double dose of euphoria: an immediate rush of adrenaline, like a shot of strong coffee injected directly into your brain, along with the calming effects of beer. Nicotine is what keeps people addicted to cigarettes, despite their health risks and unpleasant smell. Essentially, this is what cigarette companies are selling and what they have been selling. Without nicotine, cigarettes are just smoldering leaves wrapped in some fancy paper.

But if the Biden administration gets its way, that will be the case for basically all cigarettes. Today, regulators at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced they are pushing for a rule that would significantly limit the amount of nicotine in cigarettes. It is estimated that the average cigarette today contains approximately 17 milligrams of this drug. Under the new regulations, this amount will be reduced to less than one milligram. If enacted - still a big if - it would reduce demand for cigarettes more effectively than any public service announcement.

The idea behind the proposal is to make cigarettes less addictive. One study found that some young people begin to feel symptoms of nicotine addiction within days of starting to smoke. In 2022, about half of adult smokers attempted to quit, but less than 10% ultimately succeeded.

As a result, the rule could permanently change smoking in the United States. The FDA insists the proposal is not prohibit itself. But in terms of the intended effect of the rule, prohibit Maybe that's an appropriate term indeed. The FDA estimates that nearly 13 million people, more than 40% of current adult smokers, will quit smoking within a year of the rule taking effect. After all, why inhale carcinogenic smoke without getting a buzz? The FDA predicts that by the end of this century, there will be 4.3 million fewer cigarette deaths. So the agency's move is good news for just about everyone except tobacco executives. (Louis Pinto, vice president of Reynolds American, which makes Camel and Newport cigarettes, told me in an email that the policy “will effectively eliminate legal cigarettes and fuel an already large illegal nicotine market.”)

Still, it's unclear whether the FDA's idea will actually come to fruition. The regulations released today are just a proposal. Over the next eight months, the public - including tobacco companies - will have the opportunity to comment on the proposal. The Trump administration can then decide whether to finalize the regulation as is, make changes, or repeal it entirely. Donald Trump has yet to say what he will do, and his relationship with cigarettes is complicated. In 2017, his FDA commissioner put the idea of ​​reducing nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels on the agency's agenda. But the tobacco industry has recently tried to curry favor with the president-elect. A Reynolds affiliate donated $10 million to a pro-Trump super PAC. Even if the Trump administration finalizes the rule, the FDA plans to give tobacco companies two years to comply, meaning the earliest real changes to cigarettes would be in the fall of 2027.

If Trump enforces this rule, it could be the end of cigarettes. While cigarettes may be inseparable from nicotine, nicotine is not inseparable from cigarettes. Today, people who want to smoke the drug can put coffee-flavored Zyn on their upper lips or smoke a Banana Ice-flavored e-cigarette. These products are generally safer than cigarettes because they do not burn tobacco and it is tobacco smoke, not nicotine, that is responsible for most of the harmful effects of cigarettes. Brian King, director of the FDA's Tobacco Center, told me that the FDA estimates that if cigarettes lost nicotine, about half of current smokers would turn to other, safer products to solve the problem.

Whether nicotine's lasting power is a good thing remains unclear. Few people — even in the tobacco industry — would argue with a straight face that cigarettes are safe. However, nicotine defenders are more common. In my time covering nicotine, I talk to many people who are convinced that the drug helps them get through the day and that their habit is no more shameful or harmful than a caffeine addiction. There is clearly a market for these products. Just ask Philip Morris International, which earlier this year invested $600 million in a new factory to meet growing demand for Zyn. But it’s also true that nicotine is addictive no matter how you consume it. There isn't much data to study the long-term effects of these new nicotine delivery devices, but the effects of nicotine, such as increased heart rate and blood pressure, are enough to give cardiologists pause.

I promised my parents (both smokers during my childhood) that I would never pick up a cigarette. I kept that promise. But about a year ago, I started wondering how bad safer nicotine actually was. (Mom, if you're reading this, I'm sorry.) I found myself trying Zyn. Doing so allowed me to understand why my parents longed to smoke, but also quickly allowed me to see firsthand why they always had a hard time quitting. My habit of taking one Zyn a day quickly turned into two, and then four. However, every time the bag touched my lips, the dopamine burst seemed to get duller and duller. Soon, I was introduced to nicotine without thinking. The FDA's new proposal, if finalized, will mean that misguided teenagers (or, in my case, 33-year-olds) prone to trying deadly cigarettes won't be able to do so. But this is far from the end of America's relationship with nicotine.