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TOBACCO BUSINESS INTERNATIONAL
JULY/AUGUST 2015
As the cigar industry anticipates its FDA fate, players stay the course
of business as usual.
C
igar players are often masters of the delicate balance…only lately
it may have as much to do with a blend of the right positive
spirit and patience as the right tobacco leaves.
Like e-vapor/e-cigarette devices and pipe tobacco, cigars are part of
the currently unregulated tobacco products that await the finalizing of
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s deeming regulations, which
were unveiled late last April.
Much of the industry anticipates some word on it this summer,
recognizing it then has to go through a cost/benefit analysis at theWhite
House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Specifically with cigars, “The challenge that everyone is focused on
is the appropriate way of defining premium cigars for the purpose of
exemption so there’s not an over- or under-inclusion,” Bryan Haynes,
a partner with the Richmond, Virginia-based law firm of Troutman
Sanders, specializing in tobacco, tells
Tobacco Business International
(
TBI
).
“It is recognized that there was at least some justification for considering
[a premium cigar exemption]; the problem is the way it’s worded doesn’t
encompass what everyone recognizes as a premium cigar.”
So even with what used to be solid good news for the industry, FDA
looms heavy on cigar players’ minds. Still, there is steady optimism. Joe
Augustus,senior vice president of external affairs at Swisher International,
A Cautious Blend
of Optimism
By Renée Covino