Will the Biden administration ban cigars?

What is it with the Left that they need to ban almost every part that's enjoyable or handy? Gasoline stoves, dishwashers, plastic straws, gasoline automobiles, snowmobiles, and diving boards. And now the well being busybodies need to ban sure cigars.

Just lately, a gang of senators led by Jeff Merkley (D-OR) wrote a letter to Meals and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf urging the company to ban (or closely regulate) flavored cigar gross sales. Below stress from the well being foyer, the FDA’s Middle for Tobacco Merchandise mentioned it is primed to take motion within the weeks forward. They are saying underage youngsters are smoking these cigars and are prone to turning into addicted.

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This makes as a lot sense as banning scotch as a result of youngsters may smuggle a bottle from dad’s liquor cupboard or outlawing R-rated films as a result of generally 14-year-olds sometimes sneak into the theater.

In 2009, Congress and President Barack Obama enacted the Household Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Management Act to provide the federal authorities the instruments it must hold cigarettes, vapes, and different addictive tobacco substances out of our kids’s palms. Now, nonetheless, the FDA is utilizing this authority to advance its political agenda in ways in which exceed the unique intent and function of the laws.

The notion that the FDA must act to cease youngsters from smoking flavored cigars is just not true.

Youth smoking of cigars, together with flavored cigars, has plummeted to historic lows through the years. The FDA ought to know these statistics as a result of they had been those who funded the definitive examine revealed by the New England Journal of Medication. This examine analyzed the tobacco use of 13,651 kids, ranging in age from 12 to 17 years, and the information present that solely 2.3% had ever smoked a conventional cigar, and fewer than 1% (0.7%) had tried one inside the previous 30 days. That’s hardly an epidemic of cigar-smoking children.

Final yr, a federal choose dominated the FDA’s determination to attempt to regulate premium cigars was “arbitrary and capricious” as a result of the company didn't acknowledge information that these merchandise usually are not utilized by youth and, attributable to their utilization patterns, have very totally different well being dangers. This verdict from the court docket, questioning the scientific foundation of the FDA’s actions, makes the company’s insistence on finalizing its flavored cigar rule by the autumn much more questionable.

What is evident is we have now right here a case of regulatory overreach by a nonelected federal bureau. Again in 2009, opponents of the brand new legislation warned that the Household Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Management Act would turn out to be a slippery slope towards bans on smoking merchandise even for adults. The invoice's advocates promised on a stack of Bibles that the legislation wouldn’t intervene with adults’ freedom to decide on; slightly, it will merely hold minors from smoking.

We now be taught that this was a basic bait-and-switch transfer by the anti-smoking brigades. The anti-smoking foyer in Congress assigned new powers to regulators and the advocates all alongside, figuring out this present day of a ban could be coming.

I ought to say that I do not smoke — besides on very uncommon events, comparable to at a marriage. However even in case you hate cigars or smoking basically, we should always all acknowledge the hazard right here of letting unelected bureaucrats make these choices. Who're they accountable to?

If Congress needs to ban vaping, smoking, or sure varieties of cigars, they need to vote on it. I think that few members of Congress would dare vote to outlaw cigars. It could create such a backlash from individuals who take pleasure in smoking that many in Congress could be tossed out of workplace.

What's doubly ironic and hypocritical right here is that the actual well being hazard to America’s youth is the proliferation of psychedelic medication — from fentanyl to opioids to cocaine. Abuse of those poisonous medication has made drug overdoses a number one reason behind demise for People underneath 18. What's Congress’s response to that real killer epidemic?

Not a factor? They do nothing to cease the drug runners from crossing the border with their addictive and harmful arsenal. They slap the wrists of the offenders when they're caught. The place is the FDA’s marketing campaign to cease the killing? Smoking flavored cigars aren’t good for our kids, however they don’t flip our kids into zombies or corpses.

If the FDA needs to enhance public well being, it may save tens of 1000's of lives by dashing up the drug approval course of so we are able to win the race to treatment most cancers, coronary heart illness, epilepsy, and diabetes. Let dad and mom regulate what their youngsters are doing.