NBCI Applauds Commissioner, Dr. Scott Gottlieb & FDA

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Washington, DC – The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), a faith-based coalition of 34,000 churches comprised of 15 denominations and 15.7 million African Americans, would like to congratulate Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb and the Food and Drug Administration for their incredible forthcoming work in eliminating nicotine from cigarettes which is one of the most addictive agents in the world. Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs in the world ranking among heroin and cocaine. The Black Church is committed to using its enormous public advocacy to work with the FDA and Commissioner Gottlieb to rid our nation of nicotine and all of its negative health effects, especially among African Americans.

Rev. Anthony Evans President of the National Black Church Initiative says, “This is a very significant step to lowering the nicotine levels in cigarettes therefore lowering the addiction rate, as well as the disease rate especially among African Americans. We are committed to working with Commissioner Gottlieb in making sure that the FDA have the proper regulatory authority to manage this deadly killer and we are also prepared to file a civil suit I support of the FDA’s position – Because we know that this will become a hard fought legal matter. We are taking these dramatic steps to reinforce our mission around health disparity issues and protecting the Black Church as well as the Black community from these types of deadly toxins.”

Nicotine will now be at the center of the Food and Drug Administration’s effort to regulate tobacco, the agency said, announcing that it will aim to lower the amount of nicotine in cigarettes to a level that will help curb addiction. It would be the first time in the agency’s history that it has sought to regulate the amount of nicotine in cigarettes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a new comprehensive plan for tobacco and nicotine regulation that will serve as a multi-year road map to better protect kids and significantly reduce tobacco-related disease and death.

The approach places nicotine, and the issue of addiction, at the center of the agency’s tobacco regulation efforts. The goal is to ensure that the FDA has the proper scientific and regulatory foundation to efficiently and effectively implement the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Currently the National Black Church Initiative is running five anti-smoking programs in Savannah, Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia, Oakland, California, Fort Lauderdale Florida and Miami, Florida with a small grant from CVS health who stopped selling tobacco products in 2014.

“The overwhelming amount of death and disease attributable to tobacco is caused by addiction to cigarettes — the only legal consumer product that, when used as intended, will kill half of all long-term users,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Friday. “Unless we change course, 5.6 million young people alive today will die prematurely later in life from tobacco use.”

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