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FDA COULD CONTROL HOW CIGARS ARE MADE

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Los Angeles, January 11 – Can you imagine some deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration telling Carlos Fuente or Henke Kelner or Orlando Padron how to make cigars?

It could happen.

Although aimed primarily at cigarettes, the proposed bills now in Congress – S. 625 and H.R. 1108 – to give the FDA control over tobacco products could spell disaster for cigar makers. An especially devious section 907(a)(4) in the 156-page bill proposes:

A tobacco product standard established under this section for a tobacco product –

(A) shall include provisions that are appropriate for the protection of the public health, including provisions, where appropriate –

(i) for the reduction of nicotine yields of the product;

(ii) for the reduction of elimination of other constituents, including smoke constituents, or harmful components of the product . . .

In other words, the FDA could, under this provision, require cigar makers to create or use specific kinds of tobacco that have less nicotine or which create lower yields of what the scientific community will identify as "harmful components" in tobacco when smoked as cigars. Depending on the vigor with which such regulations are applied, the worldwide cigar industry could end up as the auto industry did at one time, with specific cigars for the U.S. and others for the rest of the world, as auto manufacturers had to provide cars to be sold in California with specific equipment that was not mandated in the rest of the country. The only word for such a concept is insane.

The writers of this bill clearly had cigarettes in mind, however, for most of its provisions. However, rather than creating a bill to control cigarette consumption, all "tobacco products" could come under FDA regulation. (According to the Cigar Association of America, cigarettes outsold all forms of cigars, 380.3 billion to 9.8 billion, in 2006.)

The FDA-control bill would create a mess for cigar makers and would slow the introduction of new brands into the market to a crawl:

Enormous information and labeling requirements in sec. 904 would land on all makers of tobacco products, including a listing of all ingredients in tobacco products offered for sale, the amount of nicotine in each item sold, the constituents of the smoke which is produced by each product and more.

Each proposed new brand would require "Pre-Market Approval" by the FDA under sec. 910 that mandates a manufacturer or distributor file an application at least 180 days prior to the introduction of the brand.

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Did you know?

“A shape designated as "898" usually refers to its packing, in three layers of 8, 9 and 8 cigars.