Opinion

Kipling’s ‘good cigar’ now in FDA gun sights

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Government regulators and their enablers in Congress, always on the prowl to target industries for ever-more oppressive regulations and higher taxes, are now focusing on the venerable “good cigar” eloquently extolled by Rudyard Kipling and many other connoisseurs of a “good smoke.”

Since the mid-1960s, tobacco has been one of the big-government nannies’ favorite targets. While anti-tobacconists have scored only sporadic victories in the courts over the past few decades, that is partly due to the fact that until 2009, when Congress passed the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act,” tobacco was not lawfully regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

While cigarettes are the primary target of the 2009 law, it was only a matter of time before the nannies at the FDA flexed their regulatory muscles and went after cigars. In fact, in November an FDA spokesman told The Daily Caller that the FDA believes it has the right to promulgate regulations controlling “other tobacco products.”

The FDA is particularly targeting “cigarillos” or “little cigars,” the cheap, often-flavored brands sold at gas stations and convenience stores. Tobacco-haters claim that cigarillos are a gateway to nicotine addiction, though regulators have offered little evidence to support this claim.

Last month, Reason magazine’s Jacob Sullum explained that proponents of tobacco regulation “offer zero evidence, aside from bald assertion, that flavored cigars are particularly popular among minors.” On the contrary, as noted by Sullum, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and the University of Michigan have shown that consumption of these particular tobacco products has actually decreased over the past 10 to 15 years.

There is, of course, even less evidence that premium cigars — brands like Ghurka, Padron and Arturo Fuente — are prompting a surge in teen smoking. Such facts, of course, matter little to the bureaucrats and “scientists” at the FDA, which continues to demonize all forms of tobacco.

The vast majority of cigar retailers, and the decreasing number of clubs and bars that permit cigar smoking or sell cigars, are small businesses struggling to survive in a tough economy. The regulations being floated by the FDA would place such oppressive burdens on these establishments that it would be almost impossible for them to survive — which is, of course, the ultimate goal of the FDA and its supporters on Capitol Hill and at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. These same businesses are being hit by anti-tobacco regulations promulgated by government nannies at the state and local levels as well.

Fortunately, at least some members of Congress are fighting back and defending these small businesses and the patrons they serve. Last April, for example, the “Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act” was introduced as H.R. 1639 (a companion bill has been introduced in the Senate). This bill seeks to put the brakes on the FDA’s gathering attack on cigars.

Co-sponsors of this legislation make clear that cigars were never intended to be subjected to FDA regulation under the 2009 tobacco legislation, which was designed to limit access only to those tobacco products that are “used by youth” and which “target under-age children.” Good cigars, as pointed out also by supporters of HR 1639, are “are sold in family owned and run shops and are enjoyed by adults who smoke them in moderation, often at celebratory occasions.”

H.R. 1639, which has already attracted 137 co-sponsors, would ensure that premium cigars are off-limits to the FDA. Unfortunately, neither chamber of Congress has aggressively pushed the legislation, and in the absence of firm pushback from Congress, the FDA’s threats against cigars will continue to gather steam.

Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He provides regular commentary to Daily Caller readers.