Once Big Tobacco wrote out tens of billions of dollars in checks in a settlement brought on by their efforts to suppress the risks of cigarettes and cancer, lawyers pivoted to a war on all nicotine.

There is no evidence nicotine is harmful compared to something like caffeine, it is certainly nowhere near as harmful as a legitimate carcinogen like alcohol, but we suddenly got claims about second-hand smoke - still unsubstantiated - being as risky as smoking and even third-hand smoke - PM2.5 left on objects after smoking - all thanks to the statistical miracle-maker known as agenda-driven epidemiology.

For that reason, things have been tough out there for non-smokers who like nicotine. When the Obama administration broadened its own powers to create regulations that act as laws - no Congress needed, thanks to the awful Chevron Deference ruling by a lopsided Supreme Court in 1984 - snuff, snus, cigars, pipes, vaping, everything became a cancer-causing agent and had to get approval from FDA.

It's a slow, expensive process but if it's a big enough business, and you aren't regarded as evil like Juul, or have a shockingly, stupidly, provocative name like e-cigarettes, you can get through it. The U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company has done that with its Copenhagen Classic Snuff and can now be marketed as a modified risk tobacco product (MRTP) and carry the words “IF YOU SMOKE, CONSIDER THIS: Switching completely to this product from cigarettes reduces risk of lung cancer.”

FDA, as always, reflexively states no tobacco product is FDA "approved", something they don't do with every supplement that gets foisted off on GNC shoppers, but unlike supplements this product did have to get FDA approval, so their stance seems a little odd. Every time Red Bull releases a new flavor FDA isn't rushing to tell the public that you shouldn't start drinking caffeine but if you drink Red Bull you should switch to coffee. 

That's government, though.