E-cig and cigar regulations...
Jetmech_63
Posts: 3,451 ✭✭✭
Check out this article from USA TODAY:
FDA to restrict e-cigarettes, cigars
http://usat.ly/1hmhtMM
Dafuq is this? Just came out over USA today like 30 minutes ago. Anyone heard anything about this or am I behind the curve?
FDA to restrict e-cigarettes, cigars
http://usat.ly/1hmhtMM
Dafuq is this? Just came out over USA today like 30 minutes ago. Anyone heard anything about this or am I behind the curve?
0
Comments
MY precious contests!!!!!!
also, says ecigs can be regulated as tobacco product "since the nicotine is derived from tobacco" What if it wasnt? Other plants have nicotine.... would they not be able to regulate them if any other source of nicotine were used? Same product... same effect... but since tobacco is an input, it must be terrible. I guess the govt should regulate hemp sales too, since it comes from you know where.
I would also love to see how many people the "surge of illnesses related to liquid nicotine" really affected...
clearly people should never be able to decide for themselves on anything. ever.
HALFWHEEL
I too am curious about what residual chemicals may be present in our cigars. I hear of fumigation for beetles. What do they use for that? What fertilizers are used in the field, and what remains in the leaf?
But, here's what seems obvious to me. The biggest change to cigar enthusiasts would be if the FDA gets this power of oversight and final approval of "ingredients" for new products. Within the past year, how many new cigar blends have been brought to market? Lots of them. How many new blends will be brought to market in the year after the FDA gets to call the shots on "ingredients"?
Tobacco haters getting to call the shots on blenders "ingredients" will effectively put a chill on innovation in new blends. It could take years to get the FDA to put their stamp of approval on a new blend. We know how efficeint the guv'ment is, don't we? Not to mention how costly these proposals and delays would be for the cigar makers. Costs will be passed on to us.
And, would existing blends be grandfathered in and escape this oversight?
no grandfathering at all in the current proposal, but there will be a 2 year time frame in which cigar makers would need to submit their ingredients.
It really looks like this is aimed almost squarely at e-cigarettes, and not cigars. I really doubt that the FDA has the capacity or the desire to sit there, evaluate and approve every one of the 10,000 blends Drew Estates and Rock Patel alone seem to put out every week. If they did, we would already have had the same kind of warning label restrictions on cigars that we have on cigarettes.
E-cigarettes are entirely different, because their manufactures do position them as "healthier" alternatives to cigarettes. This is garbage, and it needs to be treated as such.
Considering how many bogus products like vitamins and health supplements the FDA allows to be sold without approving them or requiring them to "prove" their snake-oil claims, I really doubt that the FDA is going to get into the cigar-evaluating-and-approval business.
There are so many far more important things in life to worry about--I don't think this is one of them.
Page 32: Under Option 1, the proposed rule would extend FDA's authority to all products meeting the definition of "tobacco product," except the accessories of such products. (See section IV.E for more information regarding FDA's proposal not to include accessories in the scope of this rule). This scope would include all cigars, including small, large, and premium cigars. FDA considers a cigar to be a tobacco product that: (1) Is not a cigarette and (2) is a roll of tobacco wrapped in leaf tobacco or any substance containing tobacco. (See 26 U.S.C. 5702(a)). Under Option 2, the proposed rule would extend FDA's authority to a subset of cigars (defined as "covered cigars") and to other products meeting the definition of "tobacco product," except the accessories of such products. In order to define the products that would be subject to this approach, FDA would propose to define a covered cigar to mean: any cigar as defined in this part, except a cigar that: (1) Is wrapped in whole tobacco leaf; (2) contains a 100 percent leaf tobacco binder; (3) contains primarily long filler tobacco; (4) is made by combining manually the wrapper, filler, and binder; (5) has no filter, tip, or non-tobacco mouthpiece and is capped by hand; (6) has a retail price (after any discounts or coupons) of no less than $10 per cigar (adjusted, as necessary, every 2 years, effective July 1st, to account for any increases in the price of tobacco products since the last price adjustment); (7) does not have a characterizing flavor other than tobacco; and (8) weighs more than 6 pounds per 1000 units.
"Money Talks & BS walks"
I guess I'll be contacting "my" representatives, again, and trying to convince them that even though I'm not a single parent (anymore), a member of a recognized minority (those descended from Irish slaves or Scots forced from their homelands don't count), or LGBT, or anything like that, I should have a right to my lifestyle choices, too.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
if you can't beat 'em....
Really?
FYI, some tobacco growers are using CO2 to kill off beetles on their tobacco.
It's becoming a popular procedure.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.
the fear over the ingredient issue is probably unfounded. Does Bayer have to have separate approval every time they slightly modify their aspirin? Not as long as they use ingredients known to be safe and I see no reason to suspect they'd do anything different. What this is really aimed at is flavored cigars, flavored tobacco for hookahs and e-cigs. I think the infused cigars may have greater oversight but once a brand shows the ingredients are nothing but naturally grown tobacco (I don't mean "organic" I mean not doused in chemicals as part of the process somewhere or lab grown) I think new lines wouldn't have any more scrutiny than they do now. Besides, it could be years before the FDA has the time to act on any of this, they are severely understaffed and have a hard time keeping up with lifesaving or lethal drugs let alone consumer items.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
Totally agree with you on that. But tobacco companies are an easy target--they don't run the country the way the banks and insurance companies and oil companies do.
Back to the proposed legislation itself, I think the alarm for cigar smokers is overstarted. These regulations do seem aimed primarily at products aimed at minors, primarily flavored e-cigarettes. The cigar provisions are really aimed at non-premium flavored cigars, which are aimed at minors as well. The "product review" provisions seem to be aimed at controlling the rollout of these particular products, as opposed to premium cigars. My guess is that public comment and the tobacco lobby will find some way to convince the FDR that ACID cigars aren't quite targeted to minors the way, say, Swisher Sweets might me. The real problem will be in defining what a "premium cigar" is. The $10 retail minimum is a bit arbitrary--plenty of very good 'premium' cigars are available for under $10. And I think even the FDA will realize that it will be impossible for them to "review" any new brand Drew Estates throws into the market each week. My guess is that in the end we'll see tighter rules on flavored "drug store" and machine made cigars, but the "quality" cigars we smoke now won't be affected all that much.
In any case, these particular rules won't get into effect for two years; plenty of time to stock up your humidors.
The argument that the FDA wouldn't act on this is moot. Once the FDA enacts this proposal no company out there will just ignore FDA regulations and keep selling its non-fda regulated cigar in the US. Granted existing blends would have 2 years to get FDA approved, and during that time they would still be available but after that no company is going to "risk" getting fined.
www.regulations.gov