The Food and Drug Administration is proposing a new mandate to remove most of the nicotine from cigarettes.

And public-health people are praising the move, saying it would save millions of lives. Research suggests that those who smoke cigarettes with lower nicotine levels experience fewer cravings and smoke fewer cigarettes. The agency predicts that vastly lowering nicotine levels to 0.4 milligrams per cigarette would prompt five million people to quit in a year [...]