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As the United States is emerging from an unprecedented health emergency, it would be hard to believe that anyone would concoct a plan to penalize people for engaging in what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) specifically authorizes as a method to significantly reduce the risk of persons contracting cancer, heart disease, and a myriad of other illnesses. 

Yet earlier today, in addition to imposing new taxes on other reduced risk tobacco alternatives, Congressional Democrats also proposed a whopping two thousand (2000%) percent tax hike on smokeless tobacco, which the FDA has authorized manufacturers to market smokeless tobacco as a harm reduction tool saying its use compared to cigarettes “puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.” Taxes would also be increased on nicotine pouches and “heat not burn” cigarette alternatives, which the FDA officially declared “help addicted adult smokers transition away from combusted cigarettes and reduce their exposure to harmful chemicals”

To increase taxes on products authorized by the FDA as reduced risk products proven to save lives – leading to more people continuing to smoke combustible cigarettes – violates every rule of appropriate public health policy. 

Democrat lawmakers urgently need to stop denying the science, and cease penalizing people who are trying to save their lives with FDA approved reduced risk products