• @givesomefucks
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    -315 hours ago

    Under President Biden, Zeller said the White House asked him to lay out a timeline for how a nicotine rule could be finalized by the end of 2024. Zeller said he delivered the plan in one of his last acts before retiring, and was not sure why the Biden administration failed to finalize the rule.

    “I would not be forwarding this timeline to you, if I didn’t believe in good conscience that it could be met, as long as clearance times could be sped up,” Zeller recalled telling White House officials.

    Didn’t stop people from giving Biden credit for accomplishing something just a few days ago…

    This is the danger of giving credit before anything is done, they get the credit and quit.

    • @[email protected]
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      114 hours ago

      You’re absolutely right. Any president (or former president) claiming to have accomplished something when either someone else did it or because it’s a wholly fabricated lie or something never materialized at all is a danger to democracy.

      We need stronger standards for our press (and our DOJ / courts) to hold elected officials accountable. It’s also on the people to be more intelligent and not believe everything they read (especially with the loss of fact checking). The lies and misinformation that have become prevalent in nearly all reporting by all media outlets over the past ~8 years is a threat to our democracy and seeds for the unraveling of the nation.

      Being that the efforts to reduce nicotine from tobacco began under the Obama administration and have stalled for a variety of reasons, I would say that it’s not fair for any president to claim success with this matter. This is the FDA doing its job. We should give them the 100% of the credit. And that credit given should reflect on the fact that it has taken far too long for them to reach this conclusion. Government moves too slow. Politics gets in the way of making our lives better. We really have o do a better job of paying attention and rejecting conservative (small “c”) ideologies.

      • Verdant Banana
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        14 hours ago

        this will not make life better for anyone but instead people will flock to other alternatives using synthetics like Metatine or other overnight cooked up chemicals just like with other drugs that are then sold at gas stations or vape shops sometimes without requiring ID or for the clerk to properly inform the patron on what is being bought

        fucking stupid and all that is needed is more funding for education

        • @[email protected]
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          112 hours ago

          I don’t know how you could possibly argue that reducing nicotine in tobacco won’t benefit anyone. I would encourage you to read the statement I linked to.

          I fully agree with you that these “gas station products” are potentially even more harmful. What actually scares me about this is the marketing on social media around these products. Over the past few years, people have come to trust influencers (and their feelings) more than science. I just don’t understand how we’ve become so gullible over the years. It’s could suggest that it’s the government’s lack of investment in these important agencies, the public’s lack of trust, and the influence corporations have over them; but people these days seem more in favor of a company or a billionaire telling them what to do rather than the government agency or an academic.

          • @[email protected]
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            110 hours ago

            Nicotine isn’t the worst component in cigarettes it’s the chemical reactions created when burning and inhaling plant matter. Reducing the nicotine levels will just drive people to smoke even more cigarettes.

            If they really wanted people to quit smoking they would have banned cigarettes instead of decimating the vaping industry like they did years ago, but vaping wasn’t part of the revenue generating Master Settlement Agreement the government made with the cigarette companies, so it had to be almost completely wiped out while cigarettes remain available for sale in every corner store, gas station, and grocery store in the country.