Cigarette smoking, the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States, is sustained by nicotine addiction. Most of the harm from smoking derives from products of combustion, with nicotine playing a minor role in causing direct harm. In 1994, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared that nicotine in cigarettes was a drug—because use is intended to affect the structure and function of the body—and announced its intention to consider regulating cigarettes.
At that time, it was recognized that most smokers begin to smoke as children or adolescents. Yong persons experiment with cigarettes in a social ...
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Author, Article and Disclosure Information
From University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California.
Disclosures: Disclosures can be viewed at www.acponline.org/authors/icmje/ConflictOfInterestForms.do?msNum=M17-2071.
Corresponding Author: Neal L. Benowitz, MD, Chief, Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, University of California, San Francisco, Box 1220, San Francisco, CA 94143-1220; e-mail, Neal.
Author Contributions: Conception and design: N.L. Benowitz.
Analysis and interpretation of the data: N.L. Benowitz.
Drafting of the article: N.L. Benowitz.
Critical revision of the article for important intellectual content: N.L. Benowitz.
Final approval of the article: N.L. Benowitz.
Provision of study materials or patients: N.L. Benowitz.
Administrative, technical, or logistic support: N.L. Benowitz.
Collection and assembly of data: N.L. Benowitz.
This article was published at Annals.org on 15 August 2017.
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