Editorial: FDA still blowing smoke

[El Presidente]

The Tampa Bay Tribune. Monday 25th of April.

Editorial: FDA still blowing smoke

http://www.tbo.com/list/news-opinion-editorials/editorial-fda-still-blowing-smoke-20160425/

Published: April 25, 2016

Some observers believe that the President Obama’s effort to normalize relations with Cuba could lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ease its harshly restrictive regulations on cigars.

But it shouldn’t take such international considerations for the FDA to recognize its sweeping proposal would senselessly endanger Tampa’s last working cigar factory.

J.C, Newman Cigar Co., which employs more than 130 people, is the lone operating cigar factory in a community that once had 150 factories and was widely known as the Cigar City. Tampa even briefly (1947 to 1954) hosted the Cigar Bowl for small college football teams.

But the cigar-making history that began when Vicente Ybor relocated his cigar factory from Key West to Tampa in the 1880s may come to an end if FDA continues to ignore public sentiment and common sense.

FDA wants to formulate rules that make it more difficult for the young to buy tobacco, as Congress directed in the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” in 2009. There is nothing wrong with that.

But Congress did not direct the draconian measures that FDA is now pushing.

As we’ve pointed out before, the rules would include Newman’s premium cigars among the operations subject to costly rules, including having to perform 5,000 hours of testing on any new products, which could add millions of dollars to the cost of producing a new cigar and would effectively put the Newman Cigar Co. out of business.

The FDA proposal allows a narrow exemption for premium cigars, identified as those that are hand rolled and cost $10 or more.

The Newman factory produces its cigars on machines from the 1930s, but they are not mass produced. Workers must put the tobacco leaf wrapper onto the machine. All the firm’s cigars, including some that cost less than $10, are carefully crafted.

But the FDA plan ignores such facts.

Now, as the Tribune’s Paul Guzzo reports, some in the cigar industry think the possibility that FDA’s rules would hamper the import of Cuban cigars might cause a reconsideration.

Jeff Borysiewicz, owner of Corona Cigar Co. in Orlando and co-founder of Cigar Rights of America, told Guzzo: “If the embargo ends, the No. 1 Thing people will ask is where they can get Cuban cigars. But if these regulations pass, they many not be found here — maybe ever.”

That’s well and good, but FDA’s priority should be devising an equitable rule that doesn’t recklessly put an American factory out of business.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor of Hillsborough has been leading a bipartisan effort to protect small cigar operations from FDA’s cumbersome rules.

There is considerable debate in Congress about whether to end the Cuban embargo, and that’s understandable, given the past abuses of the Castros’ communist regime. But members of both sides of that debate should agree on the need to keep the FDA from killing Tampa’s last cigar factory.

- See more at: http://www.tbo.com/list/news-opinion-editorials/editorial-fda-still-blowing-smoke-20160425/#sthash.F5Azl1UJ.dpuf

[LukeC]

Very good article. Thanks for sharing. Sadly, the FDA, nor any other arm of the fed gives a crap about small business owners. Very sad.

[planetary]

Very good article. Thanks for sharing. Sadly, the FDA, nor any other arm of the fed gives a crap about small business owners. Very sad.

Their mission is to protect the public health, not to protect small business owners.

[maxcjs0101]

..to make it more difficult for the young to buy tobacco..

How about getting parents to be more responsible.

[skalls]

Kids in any appreciable numbers aren't buying cigars. Cigarettes and chewing tobacco sure they still buy those. Typical government overreach to protect us from ourselves.

[PapaDisco]

Kids in any appreciable numbers aren't buying cigars. Cigarettes and chewing tobacco sure they still buy those. Typical government overreach to protect us from ourselves.

I'd guess that this legislation is targeted at the cigarette industry, and the testing requirement is part punitive but also part quality control to deal with the additives that go into cigarettes, many largely unknown.

I'd guess that the FDA thought it really was exempting cigars with the "hand rolled" exemption (to prevent cigarette manufacturers from doing an end run around the legislation with a brown cigarette or something).

This sort of stuff happens when legislation is written by lawyers instead of business professionals. Sadly, that's most legislation in this day and age.

[planetary]

This sort of stuff happens when legislation is written by lawyers instead of business professionals. Sadly, that's most legislation in this day and age.

These are regulations, not laws. Different kettle of fish.

(Understandable mistake for a business professional to make.)