What was claimed
Nicotine is not addictive.
Our verdict
False. There is scientific consensus that nicotine is addictive.
AAP FACTCHECK - Nicotine is highly addictive, contrary to claims circulating on Facebook alleging its addictiveness is part of a government-backed lie.
Decades of independent scientific research demonstrate that nicotine, a drug found in all forms of tobacco, is physically and psychologically addictive.
The claim is in a Facebook video featuring a man who alleges the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lied about nicotine being addictive in the 1990s.
"In 1994, when the FDA publishes that lie that nicotine is addictive, 56 per cent of all American adults were smoking tobacco products…" the man in the video claims.
"...that 26-year propaganda lie that nicotine is highly addictive reduced the amount of tobacco users in the adult population in America from 56 per cent down to 11 per cent."
This appears to refer to a 1994 FDA advisory panel decision that found nicotine is an addictive substance, as reported by the Los Angeles Times at the time.
However, experts told AAP FactCheck the FDA did not lie about nicotine being addictive and research has established its addictive properties for decades.
Becky Freeman, a public health professor focused on tobacco control at the University of Sydney, said the modern medical consensus recognises nicotine’s addictive properties.
"Multiple independent studies and agencies around the world agree that nicotine is highly addictive,” Professor Freeman told AAP FactCheck.
She pointed to a 2020 research report that explained that nicotine increases dopamine levels in brain reward circuits, reinforcing the behaviour of taking the drug.
"For many tobacco users, the long-term brain changes induced by continued nicotine exposure result in addiction, which involves withdrawal symptoms when not smoking, and difficulty adhering to the resolution to quit," the study said.
Emily Banks, a public health physician and tobacco control expert at Australian National University, also said it was well established that nicotine is addictive.
"There is a huge body of independent high-quality research on this," Professor Banks told AAP FactCheck.
"There is no evidence that it is a lie made up by the FDA."
The World Health Organization and Australian Department of Health both describe nicotine as highly addictive.
The FDA panel's 1994 declaration was not the first official US declaration that smoking is addictive.
A 1988 Surgeon General report concluded that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco were addictive and that nicotine was the drug responsible for this addiction (page i).
"Scientists in the field of drug addiction now agree that nicotine, the principal pharmacologic agent that is common to all forms of tobacco, is a powerfully addicting drug," the report found (page i).
The Facebook video also incorrectly claims that smoking rates in the US fell from 56 per cent in 1994 to 11 per cent in 2020.
In 1994, the smoking rate among American adults was 25.5 per cent, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In 2020, the CDC said 12.5 per cent smoked cigarettes, although it said 19 per cent were using some form of commercial tobacco product, including e-cigarettes (3.7 per cent), cigars (3.5 per cent) and smokeless tobacco (2.3 per cent).
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