The Stogie Guys

According to an announcement by U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), the Senate Appropriations Committee added language to the 2013 appropriations bill for the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related Agencies that encourages the FDA to regulate cigars and ban “flavored” cigars.

The move came just as cigar enthusiasts passed the 25,000 signature threshold on a petition asking the White House to order the FDA not to expand its authority to include premium cigars. By reaching 25,000 signatures, the petition will now receive an official response from the Obama Administration.

The FDA appropriations bill, including the language pushing regulation of cigars, now moves to the Senate floor to be scheduled for a full vote. So far there is no indication that similar language will be included in the House version of the bill.

As in most anti-tobacco efforts, the senators cite “children” as the impetus for more regulation, despite the fact that it will exclusively be the legal choices of adults that will limited by FDA regulation of cigars. “The emergence of flavored cigars is a transparent effort by Big Tobacco to work around the new tobacco control law,” claimed Durbin (pictured), even though handmade premium cigars by companies like CAO, Rocky Patel, and Drew Estate are likely to be included in a “flavored cigar” ban.

Durbin and Lautenberg assert, without citing any evidence, that “cigars with candy-like [sic] flavorings such as strawberry, watermelon, vanilla, and chocolate are marketed to young people, and get them hooked on this deadly and addictive habit at a young age.” Nowhere do the Senators explain why or how these flavors are “candy-like” (considering that fruits and other flavors like chocolate and vanilla were in existence for centuries before they were used in candy) nor do they address the fact that they are primarily enjoyed by adults.

Regulation of cigars by the FDA could be devastating to the premium cigar industry, which helps provide 85,000 jobs in the U.S. and hundreds of thousands in Latin America. Ingredient disclosure, testing, and marketing restrictions would stifle the development of new cigar blends and eliminate events where cigar makers pass out free samples to cigar shop patrons.

Concerned cigar smokers may want to contact members of the House Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related Agencies, especially subcommittee Chair Jack Kingston (R-GA), to add language opposing the Senate’s push to have the FDA regulate cigars. They also should contact their senators to oppose the passage of the bill with the anti-cigar language and follow the IPCPR and CRA for updates.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Flickr

The First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees “the right of the people…to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Cigar smokers are now utilizing an online site set up by the White House to do just that and, if enough people sign, they’ll get an official response from the Obama Administration. The petition, which can be found here, asks the president to instruct the Food & Drug Administration not to regulate cigars. It reads:

“The FDA is considering the creation of regulations for the premium cigar industry. These regulations will jeopardize over 85,000 American jobs, destroy America’s “mom & pop” premium cigar retailers & manufacturers, and risk over 250,000 jobs in Latin America that produce cigars, impacting the economic/political stability in the region. We hope you will stand up for small businesses that dot Main Street America & recognize that premium cigars are enjoyed by adults, are not addictive, and therefore do not conform to the Congressional intent of the Family Smoking Prevention & Tobacco Control Act. Tell the FDA to leave our premium cigars alone. With this nation’s more pressing issues, harming my simple ability to enjoy a cigar should not be a priority of the government.”

Ever since June 2009 when President Obama signed the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act,” handmade cigars have been a potential target of the FDA. That bill instructed the FDA to regulate cigarettes but left the agency with the unilateral power to expand its jurisdiction to include premium handmade cigars. And only a year after the signing of the bill, the FDA took the first step towards regulating cigars by asking for comments on a proposed rule on implementing regulations.

The petition will need to collect 25,000 signatures in 30 days to get an official response. So far, since it was launched 6 days ago, the petition has over 12,000 signatures, leaving until May 11 to collect an additional 12,900 signatures.

Ultimately, given that Obama was a supporter of the FDA bill as a senator and later signed the bill into law as president, it’s unlikely that he’ll come out and announce that the FDA will no longer consider regulating cigars. Still, getting an official response from the Obama Administration can be a good thing, putting the president on record and drawing attention to all the jobs that would be destroyed by the FDA regulation of cigars. A response may even lead to more attention to the “Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act,” the joint name for two bills in Congress that would protect handmade cigars from the FDA once and for all.

If you haven’t already, sign here.

–Patrick S

photo credit: FDA

Yesterday, a federal judge slapped down the Food & Drug Administration’s new tobacco warning labels as a violation of the Constitution’s free-speech protections. The legal challenge was brought by five tobacco companies, including some of the largest cigarette makers.

The new FDA labels, which take up half of the surface area on a pack of cigarettes, were scheduled to debut in September. Proposed last year, they were full color photos (including images of a cadaver with a sewn-up chest, diseased lungs and gums, and cigarette smoke drifting around an infant) accompanied by a “Quit Now” toll-free phone number.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s ruling sharply criticized the FDA for misrepresenting the labels. In a key footnote, he wrote, “Although the FDA conveniently refers to these graphic images as ‘graphic warnings,’ characterizing these graphic images as ‘warnings’ is inaccurate and unfair as they are more about shocking and repelling than warning.”

Later in the 19-page decision, Leon wrote, “The graphic images here were neither designed to protect the consumer from confusion or deception, nor to increase consumer awareness of smoking risks; rather, they were crafted to evoke a strong emotional response calculated to provoke the viewer to quit or never start smoking.”

In concluding that the labels were a violation of the First Amendment, Leon wrote, “The government has failed to carry both its burden of demonstrating a compelling interest and its burden of demonstrating that the rule is narrowly tailored to achieve a constitutionally permissible form of compelled commercial speech.”

Analysis

While not specifically related to cigars, this ruling has significant implications for all FDA regulation of tobacco, showing that there are limits to the government’s seemingly endless war on tobacco.

Judge Leon’s frequent criticism of FDA misrepresentations is particularity important, finally putting the brakes on the anti-tobacco movement’s attempt to play fast and loose with the facts. Critically, it sets a precedent that anti-tobacco regulations must be fact-based, and can’t merely be designed to oppose smoking.

Left unsaid was the hypocrisy of how anti-tobacco advocates frequently point back to supposed scientific misrepresentations of tobacco companies many decades ago, but now are the ones who frequently rely on suspect scientific conclusions and dubious logic. For example, the FDA’s own study released in October 2010 found that although the labels may stir the emotions of smokers, they might not cause smokers to quit.

For cigars, whose often ornate and decorative packaging is steeped in tradition, the limits on labels is even more important than it is for cigarettes. And with the FDA currently moving to regulate cigars like cigarettes, this ruling could be critical to limiting the damage done to to cigars until H.R. 1639 becomes law.

–Patrick S

photo credit: FDA

An important milestone was reached yesterday. The number of co-sponsors on H.R. 1639—federal legislation that would protect premium cigars from Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulations—hit 150. That means almost 35% of the U.S. House of Representatives is co-sponsoring this bipartisan bill.

Ever since June 2009 when President Obama signed the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act,” my colleagues and I have written ad nauseam about the danger of granting the FDA jurisdiction over handmade cigars. In fact, our warnings on the subject date back to the summer of 2007, when a Senate panel brought national attention to the issue.

Why have we been so outspoken and persistent in our objection to FDA regulation of cigars? According to an FDA spokesperson, the agency would make cigars subject to registration, product and ingredient listing, additional taxes, and premarket review requirements. Such regulation would be devastating to the cigar industry, and in particular to boutique cigars and the creation of new blends.

The proposition of these regulations also shows a complete misunderstanding of the handmade artisanal nature of premium cigars on the part of FDA bureaucrats. “Ingredient listing” would be nearly impossible beyond “100% tobacco” since blends are regularly tweaked to provide consistent flavor from one year to the next. Further, even if blends aren’t changed, the chemical composition of tobacco leaves changes from harvest to harvest, meaning any disclosure of “ingredients” beyond tobacco would be either completely stifling or totally meaningless.

Similarly, by forcing new cigars to go through a costly FDA approval process, the now constant stream of new cigar blends would grind to a halt. Suddenly, instead of releasing small batch blends, cigar makers would be forced to focus on large runs that they think would have mass appeal after a time-consuming approval process.

Since this issue has come to the fore, our discussions with cigar makers, retailers, and industry leaders suggest a growing consensus: FDA regulation is the single greatest threat facing the cigar industry.

So if your representative is not currently one of the 150 co-sponsors of H.R. 1639 (and if your senators are not co-sponsors of the companion bill in the U.S. Senate, S. 1461) please contact them immediately. The very survival of the cigar industry as we know it may depend on the outcome of these efforts to protect cigars from FDA regulation.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Flickr

This week there was another development in the Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA) push to regulate cigars. The agency announced it was extending the public comment period on it’s proposed regulation of cigars.

No reason was given for extending the comment period, but the extension gives cigar smokers another chance to register their opposition to FDA regulation. Cigar smokers got a hint at what regulation would mean in a recent Daily Caller article on the subject.

In the article, an FDA spokesperson said that under an FDA regulation regime cigars “would be subject to general controls, such as registration, product listing, ingredient listing, good manufacturing practice requirements, user fees for certain products, and the adulteration and misbranding provisions, as well as to the premarket review requirements for ‘new tobacco products’ and ‘modified risk tobacco products.'”

Such regulation would be devastating to the cigar industry, and in particular to boutique cigars and the creation of new blends. And “user fees” is just a bureaucratic term for more taxes on cigars, which are already at record high rates.

The FDA spokesman’s quote also shows a complete misunderstanding of the handmade artisanal nature of premium cigars.

“Ingredient listing” would be nearly impossible beyond “100% tobacco” since blends are regularly tweaked to provide consistent flavor from one year to the next. Further, even if blends aren’t changed, the chemical composition of tobacco leaves changes from harvest to harvest, meaning any disclosure of “ingredients” beyond tobacco would be either completely stifling or totally meaningless.

Similarly, by forcing new cigars to go through a costly FDA approval process, the now constant stream of new cigar blends would grind to a halt. Suddenly, instead of releasing small batch blends, cigar makers would be forced to focus on large runs that they think would have mass appeal after a time-consuming approval process.

All this should worry everyone who enjoys premium cigars. Fortunately, there are two important actions that can every cigar smoker can take.

If you haven’t yet registered your opposition, or even if you already have, please do so here by submitting a comment. Also write your Senators and Congressman today and ask them to support the “Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act of 2011,” which would repeal the FDA’s authority to regulate cigars.

–Patrick S

photo credit: FDA

If anyone doubts that cigars can bring a diverse group of people together, just take a glance at the list of cosponsors for legislation to bar the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from regulating handmade premium cigars.

At a time when it seems Congress might have trouble agreeing that the sun will come up tomorrow, the list of about 90 proponents presents a bipartisan bonanza. Sure, most of them are Republicans, as you’d expect for a proposal to reduce regulation. But look further.

There’s Charlie Rangel, the New York Democrat excoriated by many smokers when he headed the Ways and Means Committee during SCHIP consideration. And Jesse Jackson Jr., the Chicago-area Democrat with a perfect 100 rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action, is on the list with the GOP’s Duncan Hunter, a Californian who got a 0 from the same group. Similarly, try to think of another bill that would have the support of both Brooklyn Democrat Ed Towns, cosponsor of an impeachment measure for President George W. Bush, and Republican Joe Wilson of South Carolina, the man who yelled “You lie!” at President Barack Obama during a joint congressional address.

My purpose here, though, is more important than simply pointing out an interesting situation. This is valuable, useful information.

If your representative or senators haven’t signed on, you need to let them know you want them to do so. And you should draw attention to the bipartisan nature of support for HR1639, known formally as the “Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act of 2011.”

It’s a rare politician who can resist the siren song of bipartisanship. Knowledge also demonstrates that you are an engaged citizen, and politicians know that not only do engaged citizens vote, they exert a lot of influence on others who vote.

At StogieGuys.com, we’ve devoted a lot of time and writing to this issue. You can go through the archives to find everything from analysis of the bill to tips for how to most effectively contact your legislators.

We’re staying on this because we believe it is vitally important. Not only is eliminating FDA regulation critical, the recognition of handmade premium cigars would make it easy and likely that they will be exempted from future tobacco regulations. All it will take is a line that says “except for cigars as defined in the Traditional Cigar Manufacturing …”

–George E

photo credit: UPI.com

In a move many industry leaders have indicated was much needed, this week Cigar Rights of America added another full-time employee. Mike Copperman has been named Legislative Director for Cigar Rights of America. Previously CRA had only two full-time employees.

Copperman was the longtime owner of the Bethesda Tobacco shop just outside Washington, where he spent countless hours educating people on the artisan aspects of premium cigars. (Notably, he graciously conducted a highly educational cigar tasting with the founders of StogieGuys.com many years ago when this website was just getting started.)

Copperman will be concentrating on the CRA federal effort to advance legislation that will exempt premium cigars from regulation by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Specifically, he is a noted authority on the healthcare debate surrounding tobacco, and will be a leading expert challenging many pseudo-scientific  reasons given for extending smoking bans and tobacco taxes that hurt consumer choice.

In a statement released announcing his appointment, Copperman stated, “As a professional tobacconist, it was and is important to respond to the erroneous health claims put forth by those in the field of Tobacco Control, and to do so with sound science, and the use of epidemiological evidence to support our arguments. That effort will be critical to the effort to pass H.R. 1639 and S. 1461.”

FDA Exemption Bill Adds Support in Congress

The push comes as CRA’s central legislative effort continues to add support in Congress. CRA and other pro-cigar associations continue to lobby members of congress to support the “Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act of 2011,” which would protect cigar consumers and cigar manufacturers from crippling FDA oversight.

Since its introduction in April 2011, the “Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act of 2011” (H.R. 1639) has added 81 cosponsors in the House. The companion bill in the Senate (S. 1461) has three co-sponsors: both Senators from Florida (Democrat Bill Nelson, the lead sponsor, and Republican Marco Rubio) as well as Senator Pat Toomey (Republican) of Pennsylvania.

To further efforts to push for this legislation, Cigar Rights of America has recently added a webpage to make it easy for cigar smokers to contact their representatives in support of H.R. 1639 and S. 1461. Concerned cigar consumers should contact their elected officials here.

–Patrick S

photo credit: CRA