US Court of Appeals Unanimously Strikes Down Warning Labels

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3rdguy

Lifer
Aug 29, 2017
3,472
7,293
Iowa
Washington, DC, July 7, 2020 —The Premium Cigar Association (PCA) and Cigar Rights of America (CRA) are pleased that a unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found flaws in the FDA’s Deeming Rule regulating cigars and held that the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) did not do necessary work to show an effect of large cigar warning labels on reducing smoking rates.

Judge Gregory G. Katsas notes in the opinion, “The Tobacco Control Act permits the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products for the public health, but only after considering whether the regulation would likely increase or decrease the number of smokers. Under this authority, the FDA promulgated regulations requiring extensive health warnings on packaging and in advertising for cigars and pipe tobacco. The FDA concluded that these warnings would help communicate the health risks of smoking, but it failed to consider how the warnings would likely affect the number of smokers. We hold that this failure violated the Tobacco Control Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.”

On February 3, U.S. Federal District Court Judge Amit Mehta issued a ruling overturning the FDA regulation that required six new health warning statements for premium cigars to be printed on premium cigar packaging/cigar boxes and premium cigar advertisements. The court found that “the FDA’s subjecting of premium cigars to warnings requirements to be arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), insofar as the agency failed to provide a reasoned explanation for this action.”

Both of these decisions further affirm the message of the PCA and CRA: That the FDA’s regulation of premium cigars is flawed and exceeds its statutory authority without justification. PCA Executive Director Scott Pearce notes, “We commend the work of our legal team on this case and providing a win for the industry. We believe that similar flaws infect the substantial equivalence requirements, which we continue to fight in the courts and with the administration”. Glynn Loope, executive director at Cigar Rights of America, stated upon the release of the court's decision, "This pronouncement by the court ratifies what the courts and members of congress have been saying for years: A reflexive, unstudied, “one-size-fits-all“ approach to regulation simply doesn’t work. For all too long, that has been the approach of the agency, and the courts continuously tell them they’re wrong. It’s time for court decisions like today, and messages from hundreds of members of congress from both sides of the aisle to be heard: Exempt premium cigars from the most onerous elements of these regulations, and reform the most economically threatening rules that have already been implemented.”
 

greeneyes

Lifer
Jun 5, 2018
2,125
12,189
2nd paragraph.
Pipe tobacco is mentioned once. Cigars is mentioned six times.

I don't quite understand the rationale behind renaming the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers (IPCPR ) to the Premium Cigar Association (PCA).

The "Premium Cigar PAC" and "Cigar Action" [1] ... Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough, but I certainly hope whatever they're doing they're insuring that it's inclusive of pipe tobacco as well.

[1] Advocacy: Get Involved! Premium Cigar & Pipe Tobacco | PCA - https://premiumcigars.org/advocacy/
 

anotherbob

Lifer
Mar 30, 2019
15,675
29,391
45
In the semi-rural NorthEastern USA
Pipe tobacco is mentioned once. Cigars is mentioned six times.

I don't quite understand the rationale behind renaming the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers (IPCPR ) to the Premium Cigar Association (PCA).

The "Premium Cigar PAC" and "Cigar Action" [1] ... Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough, but I certainly hope whatever they're doing they're insuring that it's inclusive of pipe tobacco as well.

[1] Advocacy: Get Involved! Premium Cigar & Pipe Tobacco | PCA - https://premiumcigars.org/advocacy/
I think the thought is that calling it premium makes it sound more like a luxury hobby thing and less of a drug thing.
 
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Lifer
Apr 28, 2019
1,873
5,069
I have a somewhat different perspective. Yes they're annoying and ugly but warning labels serve an entirely valid purpose. Furthermore they wouldn't be necessary if big tobacco hadn't lied for a half century or more about the health effects of nicotine. From where I stand, warning labels are insufficient compensation for years of trickery and lying. They've had it coming my friends, every single bit of it.
 

greeneyes

Lifer
Jun 5, 2018
2,125
12,189
I think the thought is that calling it premium makes it sound more like a luxury hobby thing and less of a drug thing.
I meant more the fact that they left "pipe" out of the equation and don't seem to mention it much (or anywhere that I saw, really) on the website. So my reaction is sort of "what gives?"
 

3rdguy

Lifer
Aug 29, 2017
3,472
7,293
Iowa
Apparently it was being confused with CPR....wish I was joking.

 
Mar 1, 2014
3,646
4,916
I have a somewhat different perspective. Yes they're annoying and ugly but warning labels serve an entirely valid purpose. Furthermore they wouldn't be necessary if big tobacco hadn't lied for a half century or more about the health effects of nicotine. From where I stand, warning labels are insufficient compensation for years of trickery and lying. They've had it coming my friends, every single bit of it.

The Pipe and Cigar industry have never been "Big Tobacco".
Separating Pipesmoking from the mass distribution of deathsticks is key to the long term survival of the practice.
Pipes and Cigars are enjoyable strictly on the basis of palatability, in moderation the hazards are reasonable enough for most people to enjoy without ill effect, warnings should be little more than what you'd see on a can of Beer, or depending on the circumstances it's not much different from your average carbonated beverage.
 

musicman

Lifer
Nov 12, 2019
1,119
6,052
Cincinnati, OH
I have a somewhat different perspective. Yes they're annoying and ugly but warning labels serve an entirely valid purpose. Furthermore they wouldn't be necessary if big tobacco hadn't lied for a half century or more about the health effects of nicotine. From where I stand, warning labels are insufficient compensation for years of trickery and lying. They've had it coming my friends, every single bit of it.
I agree. I think a large part of the regulation that the cigar and pipe industry have been having to deal with is 100 percent due to cigarette companies knowingly peddling a dangerous product and lying about it for years. I also think that pipe tobacco especially is a very minor niche in the tobacco industry, so we don't have the lobbying power in order to educate lawmakers and the public on the nuances of tobacco consumption, and therefore we get legislation that lacks nuance as well, lumping the pipe and cigar industry in with RJ Reynolds, Phillip Morris, etc. This is sometimes not helped by certain pipe tobacco manufacturers by marketing "pipe tobacco" as RYO option to circumvent the taxation process. I do like a number of Daughter and Ryan blends, and smoke them, but it is partially this sort of monkey business that gets the pipe tobacco industry lumped in with other elements of the tobacco industry. The negative public health impacts of cigarette smoking are both indisputable and well known. The public health impacts of cigar and pipe smoking are not nearly as devastating, and the science is much less settled (what little science we do have on the subject is inconclusive at best).
 
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