Are we Really Losing That Much With the Closures of Mac Baren and Sutliff?

[DanWil84]

Didn't read everything, but from a EU perspective this isn't as huge as for the US pipesmoker or tobacco industry. Sutliff doesn't produce any blends, except mixture69, for the EU market to my knowledge. A few of my favorite McB blends are being kept (Navy Flake and Presby) and some I like (St Bruno), sad to see the HH line go, but I think those are replaceable for me with other blends.

 

[AroEnglish]

Anyone know if HH Latakia and Virginia Flake (non-HH) are staying in the German market?

 

[bpinkstaff]

It is what it is in this modern turd show!

 

[Briar Lee]

That argument that FDA stuff is preventing new blends from hitting the market baffles me. Leonard had actually said that these costs millions of dollars... But, yet we have seen several new blends from C&D hit the shelves, some as staples, some as small batches. IS C&D just a much larger powerhouse than all of the rest of the tobacco companies? Sutliff and MacB had new blends also before they took the shank. And, we even got a whole new line of blends from HU.

I don't understand these arguments.

Regarding burdensome government regulations:

Were I to wake up tomorrow the retained outside counsel for a small tobacco company, the first two or three new blends I applied for, I’d earn a few thousand each.

After that, they’d take my work and have their best office secretary copy it.

(If ever in Missouri and you see a huge turkey barn, odds are I wrote the original contracts about forty years ago. )

 

[sablebrush52]

It is what it is in this modern turd show!

As it has been with turd shows immemorial.

 

[WVOldFart]

As it has been with turd shows immemorial.

A turd by any other name is still a turd.

 

[KennethR]

If anybody is interested and wants to invest a little time in researching the topic of approved pipe tobacco blends by the FDA, just head to Searchable Tobacco Products Database - https://www.fda.gov/searchtobacco . I count 883 Sutliff blends that have been approved by the FDA, either as a "Pre Existing Tobacco Product" or "Substantially Equivalent". Not really sure about the validity or completeness of the list... if this database were true, Captain Black Platinum by STG is not FDA approved pipe tobacco. So, use caution and don't jump to conclusions.

For some of the blends, you can see the insane amount of documentation a pipe tobacco producer has to submit, including enviromental impact studies, water quality readouts, etc.

Thank you. A very interesting link to the FDA process.

 

[Gvkeeper]

I also want to thank eyjaygaming for the link. It was Avery interesting rabbit hole I went down. Now I don’t pretend to be any kind of expert on FDA Regs, and I also don’t want to be a scaremonger, but something really scared me in reading some of those regulations and laws.

 

[Gvkeeper]

Sorry, flying fingers posted too soon. In reading those notorious Deeming rules, when the FDA asserted its jurisdiction over tobacco products, something hit my eye. In the Guidelines for substantially equivalent predecessors, I noticed that they have subcategories for pipe tobacco…..and one of those categories is pipes. In other words, pipes are categorized as a tobacco products. In FDA speak, it’s probably viewed as a nicotine delivery system. Now the FDA has not made any move that I know of to regulate pipes and as far as I know is not planning any. But what scares me — for the longer term future — is that they think they have the authority to do so. Can you imagine Savinelli having to get FDA approval because they now have a bent pipe with a red stem? Again, no need to panic now, but reason to be alert.

 

[ziv]

Now the FDA has not made any move that I know of to regulate pipes and as far as I know is not planning any.

I watched an interview with a pipe maker on YouTube, and she mentioned that the FDA may arrive at your pipe shop unannounced to check on things. She also said though that not all of the pipe makes in the US are registered with the FDA, but you must be registered in order to be able to sell your pipes on smokingpipes dot com.

The interview was posted somewhere on this forum.

 

[fireground_piper]

There’s a bunch of pipe makers registered. If you register, they will show up to inspect ( think every 3 years). There’s an older J. Alan interview out there where he’s talked about it as well.

 

[sablebrush52]

No Dunhill blends. Not surprising since they were out of the US market around 2010.

 

[wyfbane]

A turd by any other name is still a turd.

 

[9mmpuffer]

Every individual lawyer/legal team will make their own interpretations. I've seen a lot more loose interpretations of "substantial equivalent" and there's a ton of these that have gone that route for their approvals.

This goes for any legal guidance really. If you work along side any legal team for any period of time, you'll experience policy and risk shifts any time new department heads come in. Things you may not have been allowed to do previously might become OK, things you were allowed to do previously might no longer be OK.

It seems nearly impossible to disprove substantial equivalent. All these "new" blends still use the same tobaccos from yesteryear. Seems like a nothing burger. Now if the banned flavorings in pipe tobacco, then they'd kill the industry.

 

[yohanan]

No Dunhill blends. Not surprising since they were out of the US market around 2010.

Quite a few folks have forgot this little bit of history. I do know when i came back to pipe smoking in 2008, Dunhill blends were absent from the market in the U.S.A.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Sorry, flying fingers posted too soon. In reading those notorious Deeming rules, when the FDA asserted its jurisdiction over tobacco products, something hit my eye. In the Guidelines for substantially equivalent predecessors, I noticed that they have subcategories for pipe tobacco…..and one of those categories is pipes. In other words, pipes are categorized as a tobacco products. In FDA speak, it’s probably viewed as a nicotine delivery system. Now the FDA has not made any move that I know of to regulate pipes and as far as I know is not planning any. But what scares me — for the longer term future — is that they think they have the authority to do so. Can you imagine Savinelli having to get FDA approval because they now have a bent pipe with a red stem? Again, no need to panic now, but reason to be alert.

Are you involved in the industry and have some new insights? Haven’t pipes been interpreted to be included in definitions that don’t strictly include pipes for many years? Not understanding the urgency or “discovery”.

 

[Gvkeeper]

Wow! I had no idea pipe makers were registering with the FDA. Makes me think the Agency may be closer to taking a harder look at pipes.

This whole concept of substantial equivalence comes from the medical device industry, which I actually have some experience with. If a new medical device is substantially equivalent to a device which already has FDA approval, the approval for the new device (called a 510k) is pretty streamlined. If your device has no substantial equivalent, you are subject to pre-market approval, a long and complicated process involving significant clinical trials. It looks like the FDA just copied this whole structure for tobacco products. As several of the posters have said, SE is an amorphous term and subject to very subjective interpretation. What struck me, looking at that FDA link, was that Sutliff filed a ton of applications for SE approval for things as petty as changing from a bag to a pouch or from changing from 1 ounce to 1.5 ounces (or vice versa, I forget which). But really petty stuff, as the tobacco itself was not changing. Easy things for the FDA to approve, but — thinking like a lawyer (always a dangerous thing) — if the FDA bureaucrats get it in their heads that SE is limited to such minor changes, perhaps they’d be more skeptical of changing from Cyprian to Turkish Latakia, for example, or changing the Virginia varietal to maintain a flavor profile. Or maybe I just worry too much. It’s a lawyer’s disease, which sticks with you even after you retire.

 

[Gvkeeper]

To Hawkeyelinus — no new insight. I was just unaware that pipes were part of (or could be part of) the FDA regulatory regime. I thought they were just dealing with tobacco. Sorry for making a big deal out of my ignorance. Doesn’t stop me from worrying, though.

 

[Zamora]

Peterson/Dunhill is STG and the dude who axed Sutliff/MacBaren stated that by 2028 they will almost certainly be cutting some if not all of these too. He claims the Dunhill blends actually sell pretty poorly (by their standards) in the U.S. I'd try to stock up on those if I were you and you are able.

It's a wise move especially since they could actually be saved if enough people keep buying them

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

To Hawkeyelinus — no new insight. I was just unaware that pipes were part of (or could be part of) the FDA regulatory regime. I thought they were just dealing with tobacco. Sorry for making a big deal out of my ignorance. Doesn’t stop me from worrying, though.

About what? You’ve got pipes - they can’t take them away.