....I think you may be right about the reluctance of a lower (DC district) court to question what was written by the ct. of appeals in
Soterra.
However technically the part you quote is dictum:
Dictum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In plain English, even if the FDA had no autority under the tobacco act, the result in
Soterra would be the same. Only the "holding" of a case binds a lower court. That doesn't mean it will be brushed aside as irrelevant, I'm just making this little picky point.
On balance, however, I'm convinced that the "derived from" language is fairly clear, and likely trumps any detailed analysis that focuses on the drug nicotine -
when viewed as a drug. The tobacco act is about
tobacco, not nicotine, even though nicotine is clearly cited in the preamble as the culprit that makes tobacco products so injurious (according to the law, anyway).
Courts
also tend to pay a lot of attention to the plain meaning of statutory language:
Plain meaning rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
But then my opinion means nothing
(And the "laugh" smiley there was not intended to have a double meaning or imply sarcasm etc.)