Posted on 12/16/2011 1:40:25 PM PST by mdittmar
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) in sending a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asking it to ban flavored cigars.
“Cigars with candy-like flavorings such as strawberry, watermelon, vanilla and chocolate attract kids to smoking and help hook them on this addictive habit,” the Senators wrote. “Congress helped protect young people from the harmful effects of tobacco by banning flavored cigarettes. But as youth cigarette use has fallen, cigars have become more popular among adolescents. We urge FDA to immediately close the current regulatory loopholes and prohibit flavored cigars in the interest of public health.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of the 13 million Americans who smoke cigars, an estimated 1.8 million are high school students and 475,000 are middle school students. This ban would help decrease the staggering rate of cigar use by children and young adults by removing these harmful products from the marketplace.
The Senators’ letter is available here, and the text is below:
December 15, 2011
The Honorable Margaret Hamburg
Commissioner
Food and Drug Administration
10903 New Hampshire Avenue
Silver Spring, MD 20993
Dear Commissioner Hamburg:
We write to urge the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue regulations prohibiting the use of flavorings in cigars. As teenagers turn to cigars instead of cigarettes, these products pose a serious threat to public health and threaten to undermine the important public health protections of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.
Flavored cigars are putting children’s health at risk and increasing nicotine addiction and tobacco use among young people. More than 13 million Americans smoke cigars, including an estimated 1.8 million high school students and 475,000 middle school students. Cigars contain the same toxic and cancer-causing chemicals contained in cigarettes, and public health experts have warned that cigars are not safe alternatives to cigarettes. Cigar smoking is linked to numerous cancers including cancers of the lung, mouth,throat, and esophagus. Cigars with candy-like flavorings such as strawberry, watermelon, vanilla and chocolate attract kids to smoking and help hook them on this addictive habit.
Congress helped protect young people from the harmful effects of tobacco by banning flavored cigarettes. But as youth cigarette use has fallen, cigars have become more popular among adolescents. In some states, cigar use surpasses cigarette use among high school males.
The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 gives FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products and their flavorings, but FDA has not asserted its authority over cigars. On July 7th, the Department of Health and Human Services indicated in its semiannual regulatory agenda that FDA intended to issue this regulation in October of this year. Since FDA missed its October deadline, an estimated 2 billion cigars, cigarillos, and little cigars have been sold without appropriate regulation.
We urge FDA to immediately close the current regulatory loopholes and prohibit flavored cigars in the interest of public health.
That's funny. I've seen the popularity of these products with certain groups. And it isn't "kids."
Smoking cigars is a hobby, not a habit.
IMO.
Dick Turban is such an smelly sack of ____ I went to wikopedia to see if he is a lawyer. Sure enough... this slimy slippery slithering fork tounged snake
If you're thinking the Mad Dog 20/20 or Colt 45 crowd, we're thinking the exact same thing.
Why don't they just try enforcing the laws on the books, and go after the folks selling these things to kids?
Amish like to smoke those favored cigars
I'm not interested in what traitors think.
There are always ways around such stupid regulations.
Hey, what about cigar-flavored candy?
Now I am hoping there is a heaven, because for me it would be where I could enjoy a good red-meat meal of my choice, as much tobacco product of my choice anywhere I wanted, as much distilled, fermented and brewed alcoholic beverage of my choice and as many young and comensurate-age ladies as I could handle all day, every day.
We could do all of that during the last Depression, which was when the economy was depressed, but the people were not.
Now, we have both a pervading human and economic depression because our overlords are intent on sucking all the joy out of life.
See you in Costa Rica.
” U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)Request Ban of Flavored Cigars.”
These scoundrels will not rest until they can control even the twitching of an eyebrow.
That they have time to micromanage this type of petty issue, just so they can exert more control over our lives, while they are running the national debt up over $15 trillion is breathtaking. These tyrants would have been tarred and feathered and run out of D.C. on rails in a better era of our (former) republic.
I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t detest Mordor on the Potomac.
Congressional Motto: Every law on the books passed to control your life deserves 100 more rigid ones to follow it.
If I’m not allowed any of those products or activities just what the hell am I supposed to die from?
0bamacare doesn’t want me to live all that long.
What do I do to make these people happy?
Give me a break. They aren’t even smoking the tobacco. Its discarded and replaced with marijuana. Its called a blunt. Rolling papers are so yesterday..
Yeah, I know they are not "Real" cigars, smoked by manly-men, but I don't like to get all that tobacco in my mouth.
Sorry about that.
Oh, btw, when I started smoking (many moons ago) I used to smoke "manly" unfiltered Camels, until I switched to filtered Marlboros, so I know about getting tobacco in one's mouth.
PS: Note to all anti-smoking zealots/nazis: Don't bother posting any of your diatribe and claptrap as it will fall on deaf ears!
Agreed. And if they ban flavored cigars, the kiddies will just move on to flavored cactus root, etc.
These do-gooders just don’t get it.
It’s Horse crap
Most of the flavored cigars are cut to put marijuana in the flavored wrappers to cover the smell (Don’t work)
Favored by utes of a certain racial persuasion
Divest yourself of all your worldly goods, deny yourself any pleasure and die as soon as possible.
It's for the children.
Divest yourself of all your worldly goods, deny yourself any pleasure and die as soon as possible.
It's for the children.
But first write a check for all your worth and send it to Al Franken, care of US senate.
I couldn't have said it better myself. And I don't smoke cigarettes.
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