House panel warns FDA off regulating 'premium cigars'

[strife]

WASHINGTON -- A congressional committee moved Tuesday to exempt so-called "premium hand-rolled cigars" from oversight by the Food and Drug Administration.
The carve-out, backed in large part by lawmakers from Florida with close ties to cigar makers, wouldn't outright prohibit the FDA from regulating the fancy cigars sold primarily at high-end tobacco shops.

But there's a stern warning in the language accompanying an FDA spending bill that the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee passed Tuesday: "The committee reminds FDA that premium cigars have unique characteristics and cost-prohibitive price points and are not marketed to kids. Any effort to regulate cigars should take these items into consideration."

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/19/2857950_house-panel-warns-fda-off-regulating.html#storylink=addthis#storylink=cpy

 

[Eric_GranPuro]

Good read, thanks

 

[stogiesontherocks]

Hopefully this will keep them away for a little bit longer!

 

[carolinacigar]

Excellent! Hope they will turn their attention to more pressing things...like, oh I don't know...terrorism, the failing economy, a corrupt legal system, morally bankrupt society, etc!

 

[Gravity]

All that sounds like is a CYA from the House of Reps when the FDA starts in on cigars. That way, when it starts happening and we e-mail them to tell them we are going to vote them out if there aren't changes, they can point to this and say, "Hey, we actually tried!"

 

[pbear1973]

On the taxation front, if tobacco taxes are to discourage smoking it does make sense not to tax premium cigars as highly as cigarettes. Unless you're very wealthy (in which case the tax doesn't matter), no one is going to smoke 20 to 40 premium cigars a day. Neither would most young people be able to afford them on a regular basis. Over here in the "exotic far east" I'm paying S$352/kg (approx US$287/kg), which is exactly the same tax for cigarettes. Stupid.

Aside: it would be funny to see someone actually try to smoke 40 churchills in a single day. That would be roughly equivalent to smoking 30-40 packs of cigarettes.