Come on and sing it with me, cigar lovers…
The FDA took my stogies away, they took ‘em away, away from me
The FDA took my stogies away, they took ‘em away, away from me…
Ah, the Ramones classic with a new twist. Yeah, those crazy pranksters over at the Food and Drug Administration are causing quite a stir here in the land of premium tobacco goodness. With the threat of FDA cigar legislation hanging over our heads daily, I think it’s important to let you all know what could happen to premium cigars if we don’t protect our rights. Those cut ups are all lathered up about controlling the cigar industry, you know, regulating it the way the government does best. Or should I say OVER REGULATING the living hell out of EVERYTHING they get their mitts on!
I’m sure you guys have been hearing all the FDA cigar legislation doom and gloom talk for quite a while now and while some people seem to think it’s a lot of Chicken Little-esque “the sky is falling” rhetoric, please let me assure you that it’s not. The FDA is dead serious about putting their stamp on everything that happens with cigar manufacturers, and the potential for stogie genocide is real… DEAD REAL.
So, here’s a little to-do list of the atrocities that the feds want to inflict upon the lifestyle we all love so dearly…
– Their goal is to control the blending process which could cause cigar makers to take years to bring a new stick to market.
– They want to control the nicotine content, affecting the strength of cigars.
– They want to ban walk-in humidors, while disallowing you to smell and ogle your favorite smokes.
– They want shop owners to keep their cigars hidden in a back room where they will show you their cigar selection from catalog sheets.
– They want to ban cigar box art and labels, something that has been an iconic part of our industry for hundreds of years.
– And, they want to ban all mail order of cigars.
Yikes.
Guys, let me be blunt… the big picture here is scarier than a Rosie O’Donnell lingerie show and the residual effects are far worse. These people really have no clue about the lifestyle we love and what cigars mean to us…and worse yet, they don’t care.
One saving grace we do have is the lobbyist group, Cigar Rights of America who have petitioned a couple of bills to the government that are designed to limit the FDA’s intrusion on the cigar world, not only saving our beloved sticks from extinction, but also saving close to 100,000 jobs of people who feed their families because of their work in the industry. The CRA has worked tirelessly at meeting with Washington politicians, getting congressmen and senators to support the bills that have been introduced. I’m proud to say that Famous Smoke Shop is a major supporter of the CRA and our owner, Arthur Zaretsky is an active board member who deals with these FDA cigar legislation issues every single day.
A couple of ways that YOU can get involved and make your feelings be heard…
One is to email your state political reps and tell them that you don’t want the FDA to control cigars and that THEY should support the two bills that have been introduced! Another way you can help is to become a member of the CRA and sign the petitions because EVERY SINGLE one of our voices counts!
Chicken Little my fat white ash… THIS is serious, guys and with all of the disdain the smoke Nazi’s of the world have for our hobby and love, none of this is going away. We who love cigars need to stand up and fight and the time is now before my little Ramones song parody becomes a reality. And let’s face it, you have better things to do than attend the Rosie O’Donnell lingerie show.
Smoke ‘em cuz ya gottem.
~ Tommy Zman
Brand Ambassador @ Famous Smoke Shop
CLICK HERE > www.cigarrights.org – to learn more about the proposed FDA cigar legislation and how you can help!
Editor-at-Large
Tommy Zman, is an obsessive enjoyer of life’s leafy pleasures. Growing up in the bowels of northern New Jersey, parented by an eccentric Polish father and a neurotic Italian mother, what else could this man possibly be other than a humorist? ZMan’s a real throwback to a time when men were kings of the castle and smoking a cigar in public didn’t label you an outcast and a pariah. He’s an old–school down to earth guy - but when it comes to p.c. tyranny and nanny-state legislature, he’ll draw his sword and swing for the fences. Tommy gathered a faithful following as a longtime feature writer at Cigar Magazine, and his testosterone laden FaceBook community, CROMAG NATION™ is truly the last great bastion for Men’s Men.
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Oh, Canada! That’s what is done there. The last time I looked outside I still live in America. Over regulating is what the FDA Is good at. I live in New Orleans where city council passed a ban on smoking last April in bars, period. No option for owners to decide if they wanted to be smoke free or continue with their establishment being open to smoking. Sin city of the south smokeless?