‘Tone Deaf Approach’: Hispanics Burn Biden For Trying To Ruin Their Cigarettes

This article was originally featured on MSN  and Daily Caller

A Hispanic nonprofit organization Wednesday criticized a reported last-ditch move by the Biden administration to lower the amount of nicotine in cigarettes.

Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC), condemned the move as “last-minute tobacco overregulation” and “tone-deaf” in a statement to the Daily Caller.

“The rule to require lower nicotine levels in cigarettes is yet another illustration of the many reasons so many voters, especially Hispanic voters, felt abandoned by the Democrats in 2024,” Palomarez wrote. “While our communities and businesses grapple with unprecedented costs of living and economic uncertainty, the Administration’s tone deaf approach remains focused on telling voters what they determine is good for them.”

Palomarez’s statement follows a report that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposal to standardize the nicotine threshold passed a White House review and could be issued as a rule before President Joe Biden‘s term ends Jan. 20.

The FDA had proposed the Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products rule back in 2022 in an attempt to reduce the 480,000 smoking-related annual deaths. FDA-affiliated researchers predicted in a 2018 study that the rule could cut down the rate of smoking from its current value of 12.8% to 1.4% by 2060.

The rule would be at odds with the tax-paying American adult’s right to purchase a cigarette, which is “legally sold, responsibly marketed, heavily taxed and is arguably the most regulated product in the nation,” Palomarez added.

It also could rob American public schools of $33 billion in tax revenue from the sale of cigarettes and $14 billion in annual sales of cigarettes by small businesses, creating a vacuum for a cartel-run black market, Palomarez claimed.

The USHBC does not promote smoking, according to Palomarez.

“[B]ans and prohibition do not work,” he wrote, urging Biden and the FDA to focus instead on other public health issues.

Opinions are split concerning the proposed rule.

Standardizing the amount of nicotine in cigarettes by lowering the amount would limit their addiction potential and help smokers kick the habit, a nicotine addiction researcher at the University of Minnesota Medical School told Axios.

David Margolius, director of Public Health for Cleveland, Ohio, reportedly agreed.

However, representatives of two other organizations — both libertarian — took a different position.

Guy Bentley, director of Consumer Freedom at Reason Foundation, told Axios that the rule would open up “an $80 billion market” to “Mexican cartels and the Chinese Communist Party.”

Jeffrey A. Singer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote that some smokers could take to smoking multiple reduced-nicotine cigarettes to achieve the same effect that fewer regular cigarettes gave them, citing researchers. A higher-nicotine cigarette black market could also arise, Singer argued.