New FDA Nicotine Restrictions

[HeavyLeadBelly]

The FDA supposedly completed regulatory review of the 2017 proposal to regulate and reduce nicotine levels 8 years later, on January 3, 2025. All this dates back to a 2009 law, which has been 16 years ago.

Litigation over any rule actually published, will take decades.

I think we all know about the near beer that alcoholics drink, but I had no idea there is non alcoholic boubon.

Top 10 Best Non Alcoholic Bourbon of 2025

2025's Top 10 Best Non Alcoholic Bourbon Top Rated and Reviewed. Easily choose and compare the Best Non Alcoholic Bourbon for you all in one place.

top10best.how

And there’s a good selection of non alcoholic wine.

The Best Non-Alcoholic Wines to Try Right Now

Now your top shelf will truly have something for everyone.

www.townandcountrymag.com

As for me, I discovered when my wife got sick and quit smoking and I have no more time to clench a pipe for thirty minute smokes, that I’m just a hopeless nicotine junkie. Cigarettes are a rich source of vitamin N for us addicts.

My wife is improving and we’re going to plant a garden this spring, and I might try sone homegrown Virginia tobacco. There’s no way I can ever raise better tobacco than Buoy Gold is at $10 a pound in bulk.

But if I ever need my fix, I don’t want to mess with any nicotine cartels.


I’m too damned old to start a life of crime, you know?

N/A beer and liquor isn’t just for alcoholics anymore. A lot of the younger generations just don’t want the buzz or getting drunk and are embracing N/A options and the industry is catering to it.

As for me, I love full flavored beer and spirits but I’m really loving the N/A beers coming out in the craft beer industry. I love that if I have to drive to a function I can get a six pack of pretty amazing N/A beers and not feel like I’m the odd one out yet I’m able to drive home.

Additionally I have a close friend who has diverticulitis and can no longer drink alcohol. He can however drink N/A beer and has shared many with me.

 

[ziv]

N/A beer and liquor isn’t just for alcoholics anymore. A lot of the younger generations just don’t want the buzz or getting drunk and are embracing N/A options and the industry is catering to it.

As for me, I love full flavored beer and spirits but I’m really loving the N/A beers coming out in the craft beer industry. I love that if I have to drive to a function I can get a six pack of pretty amazing N/A beers coming and not feel like I’m the odd one out yet I’m able to drive home.

Additionally I have a close friend who has diverticulitis and can no longer drink alcohol. He can however drink N/A beer and has shared many with me.

I've decided to cut down on alcohol and just had my first N/A IPA yesterday. Could you share the ones that you like?

 

[HeavyLeadBelly]

I've decided to cut down on alcohol and just had my first N/A IPA yesterday. Could you share the ones that you like?

Yeah! I love a lot of the Athletic Brewing company options and Untitled Art stuff. I think I had a Sam Adams N/A that wasn’t too bad. The one thing I did notice though is that these breweries just can’t get the full bodied profile of stouts and porters right so I stick with the IPA and lager offerings.

 

[andrew]

Canada’s war on cigarettes has been successful in the reduction of smoking.

In ten years they’ve reduced sales from over 40 billion sticks to 20 billion.

Yes but how can you keep track of untaxed sales of tobacco? And now instead of underage kids trying to get someone to buy them cigarettes at 30$ a pack at a corner store they can simply buy them for 5$ a pack off a young entrepreneur at school. There's no way to keep track of illegal cigarettes. It seems like vaping has died down now that illegal cigarettes are readily available. I'd say yes the rate of smoking has probably gone down a bit, but using government data on cigarette sales isn't an accurate gauge if less people are smoking. And I'd guess the estimates they're using on how many people buy illegal cigarettes are on the low end. It's the same thing I hear almost everywhere in canada, you rarely see someone smoking a big tobacco produced cigarette anymore. You have perfectly law abiding people they're whole lives now buying illegal cigarettes and even selling them now. The war on tobacco has failed, and done nothing but let everyone get a piece of the pie now

 

[woodsroad]

Forcing reduced levels of nicotine in tobacco has been the FDA's stated objective going back to around 2017. One company, 22nd Century, based their business model on the patents for growing tobacco with almost no nicotine. About a year or so ago they received approval to launch a cigarette brand called VLN (Very Low Nicotine). They are almost bankrupt and their stock has lost 99.99% of its value in the past couple of years.

If the regulations were ever implemented, it would effect all tobacco products, and would essentially eliminate the industry. The FDA has not finalized the rule and likely never will. If they did try to implement it, they would be in court for the next 100 years.

Thank you, Leonard.
Now if we can just get them to put the coke back in Coke!

 

[Zamora]

See it's funny in canada as they've tried to stop smoking by raising taxes to where it's unaffordable, a 25 pack is now between 25-30$ cad, has plain packaging and a warning label on every cigarette. Well as soon as plain packaging came in everyone started complaining the cigarettes tasted different. So the Indian tribes really ramped up production of untaxed cigarettes with no chemicals added, no plain packaging and no warnings on every cigarette to the point where I don't see anyone smoking regular cigarettes anymore and the government is losing shit tons of tax revenues because people have had enough.

Brilliant, and the government can't do shit about the First Nations operations because they wouldn't want to look racist

 

[Brad H]

 

[andrew]

Brilliant, and the government can't do shit about the First Nations operations because they wouldn't want to look racist

It's literally too the point they want to be charged as they want to bring their case to the Supreme Court.

 

[Briar Lee]

It's literally too the point they want to be charged as they want to bring their case to the Supreme Court.

The First Nations are probably like our Native Americans, more than willing to supply us with fresh, tasty, machine rolled non taxed cigarettes.

I’m enjoying a Buoy Gold cigarette that I rolled myself, and fully taxed and legal, it cost about three cents, two for the tobacco and one for the tube. The Indians might manufacture an entire package for a dime or less.

Cigarette sales | Tobacco Use in Canada | University of Waterloo

Total sales

uwaterloo.ca

In America our federal tax is only a dollar a package. Missouri tax is 17 cents. 24/7 cigarettes made on an Oklahoma reservation retail for about $22 a carton—-not a pack.

When I started smoking in 1972 cigarettes were forty cents a pack and $3.20 a carton and I didn’t have the extra money for a carton to spare.

My lunch tokens cost 25 cents each and while I didn’t, lots of kids traded two lunch tokens for a package of Marlboros the pool hall. I paid the quarter, dime and nickel.

That sort of thing is why we wind up today with the do gooders and the government trying to bring Big Tobacco to heel.

We aren’t on the side of the angels, my friends.

We are on the side of vice and sin, and the road to perdition .

But if you do the math, the Indians on the reservation are spending a dollar a carton to wholesale the product for maybe three or four dollars.

Maybe we could reverse what Al Capone did during prohibition and smuggle them North.

The government wants to fight demand.

If kids don’t start, most adults won’t smoke.

 

[Zamora]

The First Nations are probably like our Native Americans, more than willing to supply us with fresh, tasty, machine rolled non taxed cigarettes.

I’m enjoying a Buoy Gold cigarette that I rolled myself, and fully taxed and legal, it cost about three cents, two for the tobacco and one for the tube. The Indians might manufacture an entire package for a dime or less.

Cigarette sales | Tobacco Use in Canada | University of Waterloo

Total sales

uwaterloo.ca

In America our federal tax is only a dollar a package. Missouri tax is 17 cents. 24/7 cigarettes made on an Oklahoma reservation retail for about $22 a carton—-not a pack.

When I started smoking in 1972 cigarettes were forty cents a pack and $3.20 a carton and I didn’t have the extra money for a carton to spare.

My lunch tokens cost 25 cents each and while I didn’t, lots of kids traded two lunch tokens for a package of Marlboros the pool hall. I paid the quarter, dime and nickel.

That sort of thing is why we wind up today with the do gooders and the government trying to bring Big Tobacco to heel.

We aren’t on the side of the angels, my friends.

We are on the side of vice and sin, and the road to perdition .

But if you do the math, the Indians on the reservation are spending a dollar a carton to wholesale the product for maybe three or four dollars.

Maybe we could reverse what Al Capone did during prohibition and smuggle them North.

The government wants to fight demand.

If kids don’t start, most adults won’t smoke.

The tribe nearest to me, the Squaxin Islanders, actually were innovators in the tribal cigarette industry

 

[Zapasta]

And a fully automatic cigarette machine to make cellophane wrapped smokes costs much less than a big John Deere combine.
View attachment 362712

Would you really trust an alibaba machine though?

 

[Briar Lee]

Would you really trust an alibaba machine though?

The Chinese smoke.

They smoke a lot.

About half the world’s factory made cigarettes, or about one and a half trillion a year.

Smoking in China - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I’d not worry about a new quarter million dollar Chinese cigarrete machine working, I would worry about service life and parts.

According to family history I’m a shirt tail Osage Indian, about four generations ago. Many Ozark Americans are.

If I were a real Indian on a reservation I could call up other Indians and see where they bought their machines and how they like them.

If I were Chinese I’d make every part on those machines as standard as a Singer sewing machine.



If you fed a machine $4000 worth of tobacco, it would make 50,000 packages, or 5,000 cartons, and the first quarter million dollar Peterbilt you loaded you’d pay for one of those new computerized Bonsack machines.

James Albert Bonsack - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Xxxx
A semi truck can typically haul around 800 cases of cigarettes, which translates to roughly 48,000 cartons of cigarettes, depending on the packaging and the specific truck configuration
Xxx

This is why do gooders are after the nicotine peddlers.

48,000 cartons of cigarettes can be made from five tons of tobacco I can legally pull with my $10,000 used pickup.

Take $25,000 worth of tobacco and you get a quarter million dollars worth of smokes at $5 per carton.

The federal taxes on each semi load of cigarettes are close to $50,000.

It’s also why it’s hard to tax more than the market will bear.

 

[renfield]

I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.

 

[Briar Lee]

I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.

Missouri has legalized many vices they could try to prohibit, many they once used to utterly prohibit.

When I was a kid there was still a tax stamp on playing cards, until 1965:

Xxx
In the United States, the sale of playing cards was taxed from 1862 to 1965. This could be viewed as a sin tax, as wagers were often made on card games. In 1894, the United States issued its first revenue stamp used specifically for paying the playing card tax.
Xxxx

In my lifetime Missouri has legalized and taxed Sunday booze, the lottery, casino boats, and now sports gambling and recreational weed.

Missouri is a sinner’s paradise.

We have the lowest taxes on sin in the industrialized world on everything sinful, from booze to weed to tobacco,

As a curious counter factoid, the Missouri Ozarks has long been regarded the buckle of the Bible Belt as well. We also have the most religious diversity of any place on earth.

The entire business, of any government is and always has been, and always will be, to promote the general good of it’s people.

What taxes the sinners pay relieve the righteous of that burden, or at least in theory.


My father had 20 acres in alfalfa hay stored in our big red barn the fall of 1971 when he died. My mother and I feared poverty, without his milk checks. In the event my mother sold all that hay for more money than my father profited off the dairy in his best year.


There is a 40 acre hayfield by Collins Missouri that is now a weed farm.

Their product retails for roughly $6,000 a pound, from a field where an 80 pound bale of alfalfa brings about $6.

And you can try and grow that pot for money amounting to almost nothing.

But you gotta have license!.

Cultivation – Patient/Caregiver & Consumer | Health Services Regulation | Health & Senior Services

Health Services Regulation

health.mo.gov

The trick is to milk us sinners for the taxes without having us find ways to dodge the taxes and go right on sinning.

 

[woodsroad]

The legal weed market has tanked. Decriminalization means that local cops don't go after pot dealers any more, so street weed has become much cheaper than the legal dispensary weed. I've seen several auctions of grow operations, and more are sure to follow.

 

[Briar Lee]

The legal weed market has tanked. Decriminalization means that local cops don't go after pot dealers any more, so street weed has become much cheaper than the legal dispensary weed. I've seen several auctions of grow operations, and more are sure to follow.

Anecdotally, in 41 years of law practice I never saw one person in my office for selling weed, not one.

Yet I lost count of those arrested for possession.

After legalization pot smokers were in hog heaven.

Before legalization the price of street weed dropped to $20 an “eighth” and quality had improved, they claimed.

$20 worth of weed they claimed was about like a case of beer or fifth of whiskey. Enough to throw a party. A day’s dose for a real pot head.

When legalization came the medical grade was higher, but they claimed much higher grade, and they all got their weed cards.

My representation of weed possession tickets abruptly stopped forever.

Here’s why.




In other states, it might be different.

But Missouri is the sin capital of the planet earth.

Courtesy of low sin taxes.

There is only a 6 per cent state and local taxes are capped at 3 per cent on that recreational weed.

Way less than $40 buys the pot smoker the equivalent of Capstan when he’d been smoking Grape Captain Black for $20.

I voted against Sunday booze sales, against the lottery, against casino boats, against medical weed, against recreational weed, and against sports betting.

And the world keeps on turning anyway no matter what I thought.

It really is a voluntary tax.

Just say no, if you don’t want to pay sin taxes.

 

[Briar Lee]

To give some idea of how determined sinners are to sin, I’ve just stuffed up a new brand of tubes called Classic, that fully taxed in Missouri cost about a penny each.

$2 for the tubes, so far.



I use Buoy Gold, which is $12 a pound and $52 for five pounds. A pound makes 450-500 smokes, depending on the tubes and how hard you stuff them down.

Let’s say 3 cents a stick, on the high side. If you buy 20 pounds at a time it’s 2 cents.

$4-6 for the tobacco.

$6-8 carton.


I’m 100% legal. These smokes are better than I can buy, anywhere.

My wife and I are planning a big garden this spring.

In an area less than 16 x 8 I can raise about 30 pounds of bright leaf.

If the dad blasted gubbermint cuts the strength of my Buoy,,,,,,and I notice it,,,,I might buy more Buoy to replace my nicotine.

Or I might try raising my own.

If the FDA tries to cut nicotine levels, the smart way is to gradually reduce them.

Let all us smokers develop a taste for lighter smokes.

I hope they let the market decide.

That will allow us old retired men time to age out stuffing bulk tobacco.

 

[Zamora]

Missouri has legalized many vices they could try to prohibit, many they once used to utterly prohibit.

When I was a kid there was still a tax stamp on playing cards, until 1965:

Xxx
In the United States, the sale of playing cards was taxed from 1862 to 1965. This could be viewed as a sin tax, as wagers were often made on card games. In 1894, the United States issued its first revenue stamp used specifically for paying the playing card tax.
Xxxx

In my lifetime Missouri has legalized and taxed Sunday booze, the lottery, casino boats, and now sports gambling and recreational weed.

Missouri is a sinner’s paradise.

We have the lowest taxes on sin in the industrialized world on everything sinful, from booze to weed to tobacco,

As a curious counter factoid, the Missouri Ozarks has long been regarded the buckle of the Bible Belt as well. We also have the most religious diversity of any place on earth.

The entire business, of any government is and always has been, and always will be, to promote the general good of it’s people.

What taxes the sinners pay relieve the righteous of that burden, or at least in theory.


My father had 20 acres in alfalfa hay stored in our big red barn the fall of 1971 when he died. My mother and I feared poverty, without his milk checks. In the event my mother sold all that hay for more money than my father profited off the dairy in his best year.


There is a 40 acre hayfield by Collins Missouri that is now a weed farm.

Their product retails for roughly $6,000 a pound, from a field where an 80 pound bale of alfalfa brings about $6.

And you can try and grow that pot for money amounting to almost nothing.

But you gotta have license!.

Cultivation – Patient/Caregiver & Consumer | Health Services Regulation | Health & Senior Services

Health Services Regulation

health.mo.gov

The trick is to milk us sinners for the taxes without having us find ways to dodge the taxes and go right on sinning.

In Italy cards still have a tax stamp and you can't legally mail them there for that reason, I'm sure with them there's concerns about mafia / camora / ndranghenta activity

The legal weed market has tanked. Decriminalization means that local cops don't go after pot dealers any more, so street weed has become much cheaper than the legal dispensary weed. I've seen several auctions of grow operations, and more are sure to follow.

When Washington legalized it recreational dispensaries popped up everywhere. There was a time where you could drive down a suburban street and have five within eyesight. Every wannabe entrepreneur was getting in on it even ones that didn't even smoke pot. I predicted most of those shops weren't going to make it and I was right, the majority have closed with customers moving on to the ones that remain. I'm guessing mostly people who never bought it when it was illegal.

 

[Briar Lee]

In Italy cards still have a tax stamp and you can't legally mail them there for that reason, I'm sure with them there's concerns about mafia / camora / ndranghenta activity

When Washington legalized it recreational dispensaries popped up everywhere. There was a time where you could drive down a suburban street and have five within eyesight. Every wannabe entrepreneur was getting in on it even ones that didn't even smoke pot. I predicted most of those shops weren't going to make it and I was right, the majority have closed with customers moving on to the ones that remain. I'm guessing mostly people who never bought it when it was illegal.

Missouri again, is the master of sinning.

When medical weed was legalized there were strict limits to the dispensaries location.

Instead of driving to Colorado our pot smokers had Dr Feelgood grant them a weed card. They drove to the local dispensaries.

There are no hole in the wall dispensaries in Missouri, by design.

If you get off a plane at the Branson Springfield airport the largest grow farm in Missouri and probably the world is forty five minutes North to Humansville on a wide four lane highway.

Not far from Bug Tussle.

Caplinger Mills

Lake Stockton

Truman Lake

Lake of the Ozarks

Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?

Take your shoes off.

Light a doobie.

One of the locals was cussing the local weed farm the last time I went home.

He said they pay such good wages it’s driving up the cost of living in Humansville.

My reply was all of us hillbillies at this table are land multimillionaires and our town is literally falling in from poverty.

Good jobs for our kids is about the least of our worries.

A tourist from a dry state can go to Humansville and buy the highest grade weed on this earth for $25 a bag.

Plus about 17 % tax, of course.

The money goes to that huge school they are building.

 

[Zamora]

Missouri again, is the master of sinning.

When medical weed was legalized there were strict limits to the dispensaries location.

Instead of driving to Colorado our pot smokers had Dr Feelgood grant them a weed card. They drove to the local dispensaries.

There are no hole in the wall dispensaries in Missouri, by design.

If you get off a plane at the Branson Springfield airport the largest grow farm in Missouri and probably the world is forty five minutes North to Humansville.

Not far from Bug Tussle.

Caplinger Mills

Lake Stockton

Truman Lake

Lake of the Ozarks

Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?

Take your shoes off.

Light a doobie.

In Washington anecdotally it seemed extremely easy to get a green card, I knew people who bragged about getting one after giving vague complaints to their doctor about anxiety or such. As hilarious as that one South Park episode about medical marijuana is I don't think anybody had to take any drastic measures to get a green card.

I don't smoke pot but I must say you've made me want to visit Missouri, I always assumed it was boring but hearing you talk about it makes me think people are missing out.