A UNLV graduate is bringing his company’s new line of cigarettes to shelves in Las Vegas in a bid to target smokers who want to quit with a low, non-addictive level of nicotine that will satisfy receptors in the brain while still reducing overall intake.
That’s the pitch from John Miller, an alumnus of UNLV’s Lee Business School and president and interim CEO of 22nd Century Group, the New York-based biotechnology company behind VLN King and VLN Menthol King Cigarettes.
The cigarettes contain 95% less nicotine than their traditional counterparts, and recently debuted at Speedee Mart and Terrible’s stores in Clark County. They are also available in Colorado and Illinois.
“If you look at this, it looks like a cigarette and tastes like a cigarette,” Miller said. “But it doesn’t have the nicotine in it. It helps people smoke less.”
VLN cigarettes stand out because they weren’t developed by a traditional tobacco company, Miller said, but through scientific research at 22nd Century.
The company grew a tobacco plant through biosynthesis that contains significantly less nicotine, which opened up the possibility of a cigarette to help smokers lower their nicotine intake, smoke less and even potentially quit the habit, he said.
“I started looking into this thing,” said Miller, adding that his father’s death could be attributed to smoking. “With all the warning labels, all the education that’s out there, all the quit lines, all the nicotine-replacement therapies like patches, gums — all those things — why are so many people still addicted to nicotine? Why can’t they get off cigarettes?”
Smokers don’t necessarily need to change the behavior of smoking by using VLN cigarettes, and will lower their nicotine intake over a “relatively short period of time” until it hopefully dissolves altogether, he said.
Other products that seek to wean smokers off nicotine use “step-down” approaches, which usually don’t involve the physical act of smoking — a habit biologists said has its own lasting effect on the brain, Miller said.
“Unlike a pouch or a patch or an orb or something like that, I mean, this is really meeting smokers where they are,” Miller said, noting that he knows “there’s no silver bullet,” solution to smoking.
Miller said he has “so much heart” for Las Vegas, and believes that VLN cigarettes will see a great amount of exposure to consumers because of the number of tourists who come through the city daily.
“Vegas to me is a very important crossroads for this product,” Miller said. “There’s so many things that happen there and so many people will be exposed to it that, to me, it’s a great opportunity for the brand.”
As of 2022, more than 10% of Nevada adults were considered daily smokers, which falls below the national average of over 11%, according to Malcolm Ahlo, Tobacco Control program coordinator with the Southern Nevada Health District.
Any effort toward harm reduction is good, Ahlo said, but it’s important to note that nicotine is still an addictive substance no matter the level at which it is consumed.
No claims of safety
VLN cigarettes are the first of their kind to receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration to be marketed as “modified risk tobacco products,” meaning Miller’s company can legally make claims about their potential effectiveness, but he emphasized his company makes no claims about them being “safe” for nicotine usage — even if it’s reduced.
“Nicotine is addictive,” Miller said. “Less nicotine does not mean safer. All cigarettes can cause death and disease, so we don’t claim to be safer. And the thing is about anything you’re inhaling into your lungs — It’s hard to claim ‘safe.’”
The health district is primarily concerned with the unintended consequences of VLN cigarettes, Ahlo said. People who are used to the 100% level of nicotine in traditional cigarettes will likely smoke more packs of the 5% in VLNs each day just to get their regular fix, he said, so that smoking becomes renormalized in more areas and especially around youth.
Replacement therapies like patches intentionally decrease nicotine intake over time, so that it’s not all at once, he said.
Secondhand smoke from combustible cigarettes, like VLNs, remains unsafe, as well, Alho said.
“It’s a muddy area for us to say that VLN is a safe product ... because there’s some unanswered questions we have,” he said. “So, we’re just keeping an eye on it.”
E-cigarettes were once heralded as “the answer to everyone getting off the cigarettes” when they first entered the market, Ahlo said. However, electronic vapor usage among youth ended up skyrocketing, and set smoking prevalence among teens back two decades, he said.
Vaping use in Nevada is more than 17% for high schoolers and over 13% for middle schoolers, and the health district just doesn’t want to see the same “alarming” numbers with the release of VLN cigarettes, Ahlo said.
Data shows that smokers must have a combination of counseling and FDA-approved medication to successfully quit, Ahlo said, encouraging anyone who wants to do so to call the state quitline (1-800-QUIT-NOW or 1-800-784-8669) to speak with cessation counselors and free replacement therapylike patches.
“Hopefully the intention is well and it does help people quit because — at the end of the day — the Southern Nevada Health District wants people to live a tobacco-free and smoke-free lifestyle,” he said. “But we just want people to know that there are proven and effective ways for free that people can get if they are interested in quitting smoking.”
VLN cigarettes were well received in Illinois and Chicago, Miller said, and he pointed to many examples of people buying the product for themselves or for loved ones who are trying to quit smoking.
“It really has been very eye-opening about the role that these products play in people’s lives — the intentionalness around their personal usage,” he said. “And then the struggles they’ve had with them.”
As for the retailers who have carried VLN cigarettes so far, Miller said he believes each store values the health and safety of their consumer — especially when a longer lifespan for the latter means more business overall.
“It’s the right thing to do for people,” he said. “It’s the right thing to do for their business.”
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