The federal government will now allow companies that sell “nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products,” such as Nicorette, not to put warning labels on their merchandise, the Food and Drug Administration announced. The change, the FDA now admits, is because the warnings, which were mandated for the last 30 years, were misguided from the very beginning.

“When nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products were first marketed almost 30 years ago to help people stop smoking, there wasn’t a lot of data available on how long consumers could safely use them, and whether they could be used in combination with other NRTs or continued smoking,” writes the FDA.