来源：《华盛顿邮报》
原文刊登日期：2022年6月21日
The Food and Drug Administration is on Tuesday made a decision of rare importance, concerning not a pandemic illness but the country’s leading cause of preventable death: smoking. It is crucial the White House stick up for what would be the FDA’s most assertive antismoking policy ever — one that will inevitably meet severe resistance.
美国食品和药物管理局（FDA）周二做出了一项罕见的重要决定，涉及的不是新冠大流行，而是美国可预防死亡的主要原因：吸烟。至关重要的是，白宫要支持FDA有史以来最强硬的禁烟政策——这一政策将不可避免地遇到严重的阻力。
The agency is preparing a rule that would mandate that tobacco companies dramatically cut the amount of nicotine in cigarettes sold in the United States, rendering their deadly products minimally or not-at-all addictive. This move has long been anticipated: Congress in 2009 gave the FDA broad powers to regulate tobacco products. The agency started exploring this policy in 2017. It must move quickly. About half a million Americans a year die of smoking-related illnesses; any further delay would mean more unnecessary suffering and death.
FDA正在制定一项规定，要求烟草公司大幅削减在美国销售的香烟中的尼古丁含量，使香烟成瘾性达到最低限度或完全不致上瘾。这一举措早就在人们的预料之中：2009年，国会授予FDA广泛的权力来监管烟草产品。FDA于2017年开始探索这一政策。FDA必须迅速行动。每年约有50万美国人死于与吸烟有关的疾病；任何进一步的拖延都将意味着更多不必要的痛苦和死亡。
The idea is to make cigarettes unattractive to people addicted to nicotine and to encourage them to get their fix in less dangerous ways — or simply to quit. While highly addictive, nicotine does not damage people’s bodies the way other chemicals in cigarette smoke do. If smokers could not extract large amounts of nicotine from cigarettes, they would turn to electronic cigarettes or smoking-cessation products such as nicotine gum or patches. Some questions remain about electronic cigarettes’ effects on health, but there is little serious doubt that it is a far less deadly alternative for chronic cigarette smokers. Meantime, anything that gets substantial numbers of people to quit tobacco entirely should be embraced.
这样做的目的是让香烟对尼古丁上瘾者失去吸引力，并鼓励他们用不那么危险的方式来获取尼古丁——或者干脆戒掉。虽然尼古丁很容易上瘾，但它不会像香烟烟雾中的其他化学物质那样损害人体。如果吸烟者不能从香烟中获得大量的尼古丁，他们就会转向电子香烟或戒烟产品，如尼古丁口香糖或贴片。电子烟对健康的影响仍然存在一些问题，但对于长期吸烟者来说，电子烟的致命性要小得多，这一点几乎没有重大的疑问。与此同时，任何能让大量人完全戒烟的措施都应该得到接受。
Critics object that smokers would simply smoke a lot more cigarettes or inhale more deeply. But an FDA study rebutted that concern, estimating that the smoking rate would plummet from 12.8 percent to 1.4 percent by 2060. By the end of the century, the number of new smokers would be reduced by 33.1 million, 8.5 million tobacco-related deaths would be averted, and 134.4 million life years would be gained.
批评者反对说，吸烟者只会吸更多的烟，或者吸得更深。但FDA的一项研究反驳了这种担忧，估计到2060年，吸烟率将从12.8%下降到1.4%。到本世纪末，新吸烟者人数将减少3310万，避免850万与烟草有关的死亡，延长1.344亿寿命年。
Such an aggressive regulation might also create a black market for full-nicotine cigarettes, leading some to compare the policy to alcohol prohibition in the early 20th century. This is nonsense. Alternative nicotine delivery vehicles are common. The FDA is not proposing to ban all nicotine products, just to discourage use of the deadliest.
如此激进的监管也可能会为全尼古丁香烟创造一个黑市，导致一些人将这一政策与20世纪初的禁酒令相比。这是胡说八道。获得尼古丁的替代途径随处可见。FDA并没有提议禁止所有尼古丁产品，只是为了阻止使用最致命的尼古丁产品。
To be sure, the FDA will have to write its regulations carefully so that smokers do not move to other dangerous burnable tobacco products, such as cigars and pipe tobacco. Another danger is that smokers might add nicotine liquids to their cigarettes manually.
可以肯定的是，美国食品药品监督管理局(FDA)将必须仔细制定其法规，以确保吸烟者不转向其他危险的可燃性烟草产品，如雪茄和烟斗烟草。另一个危险是吸烟者可能会手动添加尼古丁液体到香烟中。
But the greatest risk is that resistance from industry and its ideological allies will derail the long rulemaking process to come. The agency should proceed with all possible speed, and the White House should stand by the rule as it works its way toward finalization.
但最大的风险是，来自烟草行业及其意识形态盟友的抵制将阻挠未来漫长的法规制定过程。FDA应该尽可能快地进行工作，白宫应该支持这一法规，以期最终敲定。