FDA May Regulate Premium Cigars
Makers and sellers of such cigars, understandably nervous, are pushing preemptive legislation in Congress that would force the FDA to butt out.
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But are kids really attracted to pungent, pricey, all-tobacco, hand-made, premium cigars? Stogie-defenders say not.
They acknowledge there has been an uptick in sales to younger smokers of small, cheap, machine-made cigars flavored with additives like licorice or vanilla. But the customer for “real” cigars, they say, is older. The poster child for Macanudo (figuratively speaking) is not Justin Bieber. It’s Rush Limbaugh.
Merchants who sell premium cigars want to distance themselves, for regulatory purposes, from purveyors of cheaper, more kid-friendly stuff.
“From the outside,” says Zaretsky, “the cigar industry looks like a united front — but it’s not. Small, machine-made cigars are a totally different business. They sell 7 billion cigars a year. We sell 250 million. We’re one-tenth of one percent of the cigar business in the U.S.”
To protect themselves, makers and sellers of premium cigars have sponsored — though a group called Cigar Rights of America — two bills in Congress, S. 1461 and H.R. 1639, that would stop the FDA from regulating what the legislation calls “traditional large and premium cigars,” as distinct from “little cigars.” Sponsors include Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla.
The FDA, for its part, says on its website that it is “developing a strategy to regulate additional categories of tobacco products” beyond those it already does, which include cigarettes and smokeless tobacco (e.g., snuff and chewing tobacco). The site says the agency is moving “as expeditiously as possible” to release for public comment a new rule applicable to additional forms of tobacco, which, presumably, would include cigars.
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