Really Federal Government? REALLY?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125364409549231483.html

 

WOW.

 

 

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials warned companies Tuesday to think twice about circumventing a new ban on certain flavored-cigarettes by introducing similar products like little cigars.

 

Specifically the ban affects cigarettes with fruit, candy or clove flavors. Although such products -- primarily made by small, private firms or imported into the U.S., -- account for a tiny segment of cigarettes smoked in the U.S., the ban is the first major step taken by the FDA since the agency was given jurisdiction over the tobacco industry in June.

 

Health officials also said they hoped the ban would stop many young people from trying smoking.

 

"The appeal to youth is overwhelming," said Matthew L. Myers, the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, one of the groups that pushed for enactment of the legislation giving FDA authority over tobacco products. "They are starter products."

 

FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg noted that 90% of adults who smoke started as children.

 

Products affected by the ban include cigarettes with flavors like clove, vanilla and grape. In 2006, tobacco-maker R.J. Reynolds agreed to stop marketing flavored Camel cigarettes as part of an agreement with state attorneys' generals.

 

The ban doesn't apply to menthol cigarettes but the FDA said it's "examining options" for regulating menthol cigarettes as well as other tobacco products like smokeless tobacco products that are also available in several flavors.

 

At least one company, Kretek International Inc., which imports Djarum-brand tobacco products from Indonesia, imports cigars similar to the size of a cigarette that contain flavors like clove and vanilla that remain on the market for now, amid confusion about whether the law applies to cigars.

 

John Geoghegan, Kretek's director of product development, said the company has imported clove-flavored cigars for several years but "because of the banning of market shipments of Djarum cigarettes, distributor and retailer focus on Kretek's cigars has taken on additional prominence."

 

He said the Treasury Department's Tobacco Tax and Trade Board classified the products as cigars under federal law in 2007.

 

Lawrence Deyton, the director of FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, explained that the federal definition of a cigarette includes "any roll of tobacco wrapped in paper," suggesting certain cigars could immediately fall under the tobacco law and the flavored-cigarette ban.

 

An FDA lawyer said the FDA would look at "little cigars" and similar products on a "case-by-case basis."

 

In a memo to industry the FDA said the tobacco law applies to all tobacco products that meet the definition of a "cigarette" even if they aren't labeled as cigarettes or "are labeled as cigars or some other product."

 

Write to Jennifer Corbett Dooren at jennifer.corbett-dooren@dowjones.com

Not that I'm a smoker, but I know a lot of my friends are.

So I'm partially invested in this...

 

A question for anyone that might know, "If the law is limited to cigarettes and the FDA's definition of that is "any roll of tobacco wrapped in paper", then would this mean that purchasing loose clove tobacco is still legal, in which case could one merely roll their own?"

Filtered Cigars are still available.

 

The company that makes Camel also agreed and took their flavored ciggaretts off the market a few months ago, before this came up.

Yet people wonder why I'm paranoid/ against the government.

I went in to get some Blacks from the smoke shop here a week or so ago.. at $9.99 a box (yes.. that's $10 for 20 clove cigarettes).. they were out at the time, and that's when the clerk informed me that they'd *maybe* get one more shipment of them.. and after that they were going to be banned and had to be changed to little 'cigars' that are sold in boxes of 12. This crap is getting ridiculous. Not only are regular cigarettes $7 a pack up here now.. but they go and jack this too? Cloves are like.. a treat for me every few weeks. I hate the government.

Yet people wonder why I'm paranoid/ against the government.

 

'cause they be messin' wit'cho cloves!!

I'll be honest here...I hate cigarette smoke and have never smoked a day in my life and never will. I get horrible headaches from the smoke (Always have) and we used to make my dad smoke outside as a kid. I'm sure there are many of y'all that do smoke regularly though so I can see how something like this angers you.

I don't smoke either. It is about the government taking away things from people as they see fit. Its a conscious decision to smoke, and more importantly, to keep smoking. This is the governments way of stepping in and imposing restrictions because some idiot kids have a lack of willpower, as if any government has a right to tell people what to do. You chose to smoke, you are personally accountable for your actions, not like Joe the camel is holding you down at gunpoint forcing cigarettes in your mouth. Revolution people, revolution.

I HATE SMOKING.

I HATE SMOKING.

 

YEAH WE KNOW.

I don't smoke either. It is about the government taking away things from people as they see fit. Its a conscious decision to smoke, and more importantly, to keep smoking. This is the governments way of stepping in and imposing restrictions because some idiot kids have a lack of willpower, as if any government has a right to tell people what to do. You chose to smoke, you are personally accountable for your actions.

Too be fair, pushing an old granny down a flight of stairs and making off with her purse is a conscious decision too, and most of us are OK with laws against that.

 

Cigarettes should be illegal. Anything who's only positive is that once you get hooked on it you start needing it to function... I'm cool with getting rid of.

 

It'll never happen in the near term though - There are still too many smoker/voters!

Edited September 24, 2009 by Fatherpeteus

I hope they ban them all!! ban them all to h311 mwaaahahaha!! /healthy

am i evil or what?

Cigarettes should be illegal. Anything who's only positive is that once you get hooked on it you start needing it to function... I'm cool with getting rid of.

but yeh, father's previous comment summed up my opinion in a nutshell as well. sry smokers, I <3 you and want you to live longer.. so sue me

Edited September 24, 2009 by Killerpriest

Government imposes rules as one of its functions. There are some rules that control social behavior, such as laws against discrimination. The problem here is where do you draw the line? At which point does the government go to far in controlling social behavior. We have a mechanism that decides that and that mechanism (at least in theory) is the will of the people through the legislature. So if you don't like something then you can ultimately write to your congress person or seek other recourse. If you feel that you have no recourse against the oppression of the government then you can choose to leave and form a new nation.

I am a smoker.. In the process of quitting mind you but then again who isn’t

From experience I know 2 things about the government and there control of tobacco. 1 is they don’t really want to stop the sales of such things they just want a excuse to make more money from it. And 2. they want to appear like they are generally concerned about the young people smoking.

 

I started smoking when I was 11. Back then the age to buy smokes was 15. 2 months before I turned 15 they raised the age to 18. I was mad cause you know. But it was so easy to write a fake note from Mom that she needed the cigerettes and poof I had smokes. Then they stopped accepting notes. And we just got a adult to buy them. By the time they imposed huge fines to bootleggers I was 18.

 

Point of my story. No matter what they do, or how they change things smokers will smoke. There will always be a way to get the smokes. All that really changes is that maybe just maybe a few of the younger people who aren’t “Addicted” yet will think that it is too hard to get them and maybe they will choose not to smoke.

 

We should all just quit and then they would be even poorer since tabacco sales accounts for a very large portion of the goverments income. Buahhaha

Too be fair, pushing an old granny down a flight of stairs and making off with her purse is a conscious decision too, and most of us are OK with laws against that.

 

Cigarettes should be illegal. Anything who's only positive is that once you get hooked on it you start needing it to function... I'm cool with getting rid of.

 

It'll never happen in the near term though - There are still too many /voters!

 

I fail to see where exactly you're going with the old lady arguement. Smoking is something you choose for yourself, whereas getting mugged really isn't.

 

Government imposes rules as one of its functions. There are some rules that control social behavior, such as laws against discrimination. The problem here is where do you draw the line? At which point does the government go to far in controlling social behavior. We have a mechanism that decides that and that mechanism (at least in theory) is the will of the people through the legislature. So if you don't like something then you can ultimately write to your congress person or seek other recourse. If you feel that you have no recourse against the oppression of the government then you can choose to leave and form a new nation.

 

Oh, Igor, don't get me started on this one. I don't feel that any person, institution, social contract, god, honkey, media, or cracker have the right to impose their will on another. It is such an violation of what being human is to me I can't even really describe it. Congress works like you say it does, in theory. We both know that in its execution it is seldom the case. My other recourse in this matter is to try and show the masses to see things for themselves, instead of trusting what they've heard others say all their lives, hell most people don't even know that the Federal Reserve isn't even part of our government (and consequently one of the most corrupt institutions on the planet). I can't really choose to leave, as the other greedy bastards have divided up this planet like pieces of a pie, so that the only really free place on the planet is probably Antarctica, which really isn't exactly hospitable to the frail human condition.

I fail to see where exactly you're going with the old lady arguement. Smoking is something you choose for yourself, whereas getting mugged really isn't.

It's the mugger who makes the choice, not the victim. And governments pass laws to prohibit that bad behavior - It's their job.

 

If it weren't for the second-hand smoke (especially for children of smokers), healthcare costs and lost productivity, smoking would only hurt the smoker and it would be a little different. It would still be appropriate for government to try to protect naive kids from being lured into an addiction though, imo.

Edited September 24, 2009 by Fatherpeteus

I reaaally hate when people try to justify the Government stepping over their boundaries. It's nice that you're healthy, and lovely that you want us to "live" but smoking is a personal choice, and regardless of how you feel it "affects" you it really doesn't. You complain about second-hand smoke, like someone is just forcing you to sit in it for all hours of the day, when this is straight not true. Smoking only takes place outside, and when in a very popular public venue (IE Disneyland for one) There are only CERTAIN places you're allowed to even smoke in the first place. People with terrible cars are allowed to drive their polluting behinds all the heck over popular streets, with businesses and schools, and nothing is done about that. Yet if one grown arse man pulls out a cigarette, all hell breaks lose.

 

People hurt themselves all day when eating fast food, dieting wrong, speeding, drinking, hairspraying their F-ING hair. Let people smoke if they want to smoke. That's more fresh air for me when they die anyways.

 

 

Brought to you by an, outraged at the government, anti-smoker. Thanks.

 

The Sauce.

And I didn't even call for blackup!

It would still be appropriate for government to try to protect naive kids from being lured into an addiction though, imo.

 

 

I'm 16. I don't smoke. Maybe I'll start smoking, maybe I won't, that's not the point. I think it's absolutely ridiculous for the government to do this, for reasoned already explained by both Honki and Sauceboss. It's a person's choice to smoke. If they want to die, they can, they have the right to do what they want, so long as it doesn't oppose on another person's rights, which is why many buildings don't allow smoking indoors.

 

But putting a ban on cigarettes is outrageous, and completely out of line. There are much worse problems out there, as Sauceboss mentioned.

 

Fatherpeteus, your example was completely irrelevant. One is seriously harming a person against their will. In another, you're choosing to stay and be harmed by the smoke, and complain about it.

 

 

There's no such thing as personal choice anymore. One could easily link the decision to smoke with increased health care costs, hence higher premiums, etc etc.

I have a 3 month old child. It was my personal choice to have a child. It has also been my personal choice to not smoke, even though I know that a clove once and a while would relax the heck out of me. Saying there's not personal choice anymore is ridiculous, though I will agree that there's not a whole LOT of personal choice anymore. In the end the point is smoking IS a personal choice, as much as drinking, or driving your car to go rent crappy B-rate movies from Hollywood Video called the Transmorphers.

 

 

Wait.

I should have written that better. There's no such thing as a personal choice that affects only onesself.

You complain about second-hand smoke, like someone is just forcing you to sit in it for all hours of the day, when this is straight not true. Smoking only takes place outside, and when in a very popular public venue (IE Disneyland for one) There are only CERTAIN places you're allowed to even smoke in the first place.

This is kindof true - Only because of relatively recent government regulations on smoking. So it's not helping your case for why government should leave smokers alone.

 

People with terrible cars are allowed to drive their polluting behinds all the heck over popular streets, with businesses and schools, and nothing is done about that. Yet if one grown arse man pulls out a cigarette, all hell breaks lose.

Cars have important plusses. Cigarettes have none. That's a key difference.

 

Cars have important plusses. Cigarettes have none. That's a key difference.

 

As far as the government is concerned, cigarettes have crazy taxes that bring in a ton of money on the federal and state level. That is a huge plus for the government.