US cigars under threat from FDA plans

The president of J.C. Newman Cigar, Eric Newman, has launched a campaign urging the public to submit comments to the US Food and Drug Administration asking the agency to exclude from its proposed deeming regulations the sorts of cigars made at Newman’s factory in Tampa, Florida, according to a story by Susan Thurston for the Tampa Bay Times.

The FDA, which already regulates cigarettes, cigarette tobacco and smokeless tobacco, in April issued proposed deeming regulations covering other ‘tobacco’ products not yet covered by its regulations, including cigars, pipe tobacco, hookahs, nicotine gels, electronic cigarettes and certain dissolvables that are not regarded as smokeless tobacco.

Newman said that if the FDA approved tighter controls that treated cigar manufacturers as if they were cigarette manufacturers, complying with those controls would be so cumbersome and cost prohibitive that his factory would be forced to close.

“The lifeblood of any business is new products and services, and these regulations would make it impossible to introduce new products,” he said “It would require 5,000 hours of product testing and analysis. We’d be regulated out of business.”

The full story is at http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/ybor-city-cigar-factory-fuming-over-proposed-fda-rules/2187063.