Freedom Takes Another Hit as the FDA Cracks Down on Premium Cigars
Source – Scott Gottlieb of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revealed some of his agency’s major policy goals for 2018. For the tobacco industry, two topics on the FDA’s agenda will be of great interest: nicotine addiction and the regulation of premium cigars. … Here’s what Gottlieb wrote on the FDA’s blog about these topics:
“To reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with combusting tobacco, we are proposing meaningful actions to advance our new, comprehensive approach to nicotine and the regulation of combustible cigarettes. …
“Further, FDA will be issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to solicit information that may inform regulatory actions FDA might take with respect to premium cigars, asking certain questions related to how we might define and regulate “premium cigars,” taking into consideration the health effects of these products and their patterns of use.”
Let me be clear right from the outset. This is not about Democrat vs. Republican, Obama vs. Trump, Rocky Patel vs. Cohiba or any other cigar maker you want to mention. This is about The World vs. Jerry’s Enjoyment of Life. The Fun Police vs. Pleasure. Oppression vs. Freedom. America the Direction It’s Heading vs. America the Way It Was Meant to Be.
Look, I don’t ask for much. I don’t demand the government give me money or a job or pay my doctor’s bills or anything of the kind. As long as they take care of the troops who stand guard against the wolves at the door, keep the streets plowed, clean up after natural disasters and see to it someone comes if I call 911, I consider us even. Beyond that, all I want is a good leaving alone. Especially from unelected and therefore unaccountable bureau-douches like Scott Gottlieb and the rest of the buttinskis at the FDA.
Newsflash Gottlieb, I work hard all day. OK, actually I sit around on the Internet and bang words into a keyboard. But for the sake of this discussion, let’s just pretend that is hard work. And in my down time, I seek pleasure as a reward for all that hypothetical work. Sometimes that pleasure takes the form of a quality cigar. Out on my back deck. On the golf course. At cookouts. Tailgating. I fire up my windproof lighter like a beacon of freedom and enjoy the bounty of nature as our forefathers intended. Some of the most satisfying moments of my life have been spent standing around with my brothers and friends with a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other, masters of our universe. The envy of all we survey. And the last thing any of us want or need is some preachy, self-appointed, self-righteous human high school health class video regulating our simple guilty pleasure out of existence.
You want to keep cigars out of the hands of kids? Here’s a suggestion: Make them illegal to children. Oh, wait. You already did. Problem solved. Now move along. Stop trying to kill Rocky Patel’s industry and put the thousands of good men and women who actually work for a living providing me with my sweet, sweet combustible nicotine out of a job. You can have my cigars when you can pull them from my cold, dead, smoky, tobacco-stained fingers.