George Washington was a tobacco farmer and John Adams a pipe smoker, and every town in America has had a cigar store or pipe tobacconist since the nation's founding. But the Food and Drug Administration is determined to end all that.
There are more than 2,000 cigar and pipe stores currently operating in this country, employing 35,000 Americans, and the FDA has put them all on notice that they need to stop doing business as usual and start filling their inventory with non-tobacco products. The situation is so bad that the three small trade groups representing cigars and pipes have been forced to file a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C.
The FDA wants for anyone hand-rolling cigars to register with the government; same with artisan pipe makers. Tobacconists would no longer be able to offer their store's unique blends without special permission, and no cigar or pipe tobacco introduced after 2007 would have much of a chance of being allowed into the marketplace.
When representatives of the cigar and pipe industries pointed out to the FDA that these regulations would effectively put hundreds of stores out of business, their reply was frightening. As quoted in the lawsuit filed against the government, the "FDA's response to these small businesses is that they 'would be able to shift shelf space and other activities to non-tobacco products.'"
This all started in 2009 when Congress passed the Tobacco Control Act, which gave the FDA authority to prevent the use of tobacco by young people. This was a time when the House of Representatives was controlled by Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Senate by Harry Reid (D-Nev.), with President Barack Obama in the White House. The sweeping new regulatory powers granted to the FDA are typical of the government expansion that has occurred in recent years. Without question, this was a contributing factor to the backlash vote we saw last month when Donald Trump and the Republicans, vowing to get rid of needless regulations, were swept into office.
This is not intended to be a politically partisan essay, but I mention the election because now is an ideal time for the cigar and pipe industries to find legislators who will propose a bill to exempt cigars and pipes and pipe tobacco from FDA control. If such a bill were passed, that would be that. But if not, there is the federal lawsuit filed by the Cigar Association of America, the International Premium Cigar and Pipe Retailers Association, and the Cigar Rights of America.
If you want a case study in how bureaucracies can become tyrannical, there is no better example than the FDA's control over cigars and pipes and pipe tobacco.
They were never included in the original Tobacco Control Act because everyone knew that kids were not running out and buying premium cigars or Dunhill pipes and expensive 965 pipe tobacco. Congress granted the FDA authority over four very specific tobacco products: cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own and smokeless.
Well, you might ask, how does the FDA justify their regulations if pipes and cigars were not named in the original legislation?
Picture the Salem witch trials, where certain people in authority would "deem" a woman to be a witch and then call for her to be burned at the stake. That is precisely what happened with the Tobacco Control Act. The FDA was given the right to "deem" newly created tobacco products to be under their control. The Act was not intended to be used as a weapon for the prohibition of the oldest forms of tobacco enjoyment; namely, pipes and cigars. Yet, that is how the FDA is interpreting the law.
Whenever a federal agency wants to impose sweeping new regulations over an industry, there are several requirements they must satisfy before they are allowed to proceed. One is to ask in advance for feedback from the industry and the public. Well, the FDA did that. However, they completely ignored all of the comments. In fact, they doubled down and made their regulations even more onerous than originally proposed and more onerous than the Tobacco Control Act authorizes.
Secondly, a federal agency needs to perform a cost/benefit analysis to determine if their new regulations are worth more than they cost. The FDA failed to do this. They claimed it would be too difficult to analyze the thousands of small businesses operating in every state in the union. If that puts thousands of Americans out of work, so what, says the FDA.
When I first started smoking a pipe in the 1970s, one of the most appealing things was the camaraderie. I remember visiting Fader's in downtown Baltimore, where a handful of customers and store employees would stand around and enjoy a bowl. I remember one of the employees asking me what blend of tobaccos I most liked. I wasn't sure, so he proceeded to make a blend on top of a newspaper on the counter. "Here, try this," he said. I did, and it was wonderful. He told me it was the store's blend called Unique, which was a variation of Captain Black.
I loved it and smoked that blend for 13 years. Then my tastes changed and suddenly I was drawn to English and Turkish blends. After telling that to Bill Fader, he offered me his blend called Istanbul, which was fantastic. This level of customer service is emblematic of pipe and cigar stores—going back more than a century.
In the 1940s and '50s, Kramer's pipe store in Beverly Hills was frequented by a priest from the local Catholic church. His name was Fr. Dempsey, and he became great friends with the store's Jewish founder, Allen Kramer. Together, they mixed and matched tobaccos, trying to duplicate Dunhill's 965 blend. I just love the image of this ecumenical bonding of two men who became close friends over their shared passion for pipes. No wonder Native Americans called them peace pipes. After a lengthy period of trial and error, Fr. Dempsey and Mr. Kramer hit upon a blend that they called Fr. Dempsey's Special. They still sell it today at Kramer's, a family business run by the founder's daughter, Marsha Kramer, and her husband, Jim.
Why am I telling you these stories? Because if the FDA has its way, all of these blends would be subject to regulations and applications for approval. In other words, the FDA has announced, through the effects of the new regulations, its intent to wipe out this century-old tradition.
Their argument is that the tobacconist is "manufacturing" a tobacco blend. But the government has previously approved all of the tobaccos used. Mixing and matching them is no different from a chef making an omelet—with mushrooms, ham and cheese one time and avocado, onions and green peppers another. The tobacconist is not manufacturing tobacco any more than the chef is manufacturing food when he makes an omelet.
If the FDA prevails, the small-business owners would need to invest huge sums of money, perhaps tens of thousands of dollars or more, just to get approval of their existing brands, and any variation would be rendered impossible by the FDA's bureaucratic approval process. There is a grandfather clause in the regulations that makes it easier for brands that were selling before 2007 to continue to be sold; however, it is so arbitrary, and unfair to people new in the field, that I doubt it will be upheld.
Then there are the pipes themselves. While interpreting the Tobacco Control Act, the FDA acknowledges that it has no authority over accessories—they only control components and parts of pipe tobacco. An accessory is defined by the FDA as something that can be used for the consumption of tobacco but is not made from tobacco.
You'd think they were describing a pipe or a cigarette holder or cigar holder. But you would be wrong —the FDA is now taking the position that pipes are components and parts of pipe tobacco. How's that again? My pipe, made of wood and vulcanized rubber, is a component of my pipe tobacco no different from the Latakia and Perique?
Wait a minute. By this logic a beer stein is a component of beer and a brandy glass a component of brandy.
This is so far fetched as to be called silly—preposterous, in fact. I have seen bubble gum cigars and licorice pipes that you can eat, but I have never seen a briar pipe that can be rolled into a cigar leaf and smoked! A pipe is NOT pipe tobacco. It is a vessel for consuming pipe tobacco—an accessory by the FDA's own definition.
Although the Tobacco Control Act was aimed at reducing youth smoking, the FDA has expanded the reach of the law by applying it to all adults who use tobacco products. When they announced their new regulations last summer, they went out of their way to claim that cigars are just as dangerous to your health as cigarettes.
As part of their announcement, they included their research in detail. The problem is that their research shows comparable dangers only when usage is comparable. But for the average cigar smoker who enjoys one or two cigars a day, there is no significant health hazard. Dr. Brad Rodu, an oral pathologist who is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Louisville, has analyzed the FDA findings and concludes that moderate cigar use poses little to no health risk.
How many pipe bowls equal one cigar? Well, if you compare a standard-sized pipe and cigar, you could fill up the pipe at least five times with the tobacco in one cigar. But if you smoked them, I'm guessing that two pipe bowls take about the same amount of time as one cigar. So if you have one or two cigars a day—a safe range according to the FDA—then two to four pipe bowls a day would be fine. Personally, I smoke between two and three pipe bowls a day and do not inhale, and I am 66 going on 36!
A Dunhill Group 5 pipe alongside a cigar I received at the cigar dinner at the 2016 Chicago Pipe Show.
Surprisingly, there are a number of young American pipe makers who make a living from woodworking briar pipes as fine art. Several of them have asked me if I think they should register with the federal government, and my instinct was to tell them to stay under the radar, hoping that either the lawsuit will win in court or that new legislation will be passed bringing sanity to these issues.
But this is easy for me to say because I am not in the business. I am a pipe smoker and collector who enjoys writing about the many benefits I derive from pipe smoking, but this has always been a hobby for me. I suspect that were I a pipe maker myself, I would hire an attorney experienced in dealing with government agencies to handle the situation.
I discussed this issue with Sykes Wilford, founder of the highly successful smokingpipes.com, and he was adamant that "doing nothing leaves pipe makers completely exposed. If American pipe makers do not comply with product listing by Dec. 31 (and we've given them—at least the 40-odd we work with—a very simple step-by-step guide for compliance) then they are in violation of the law. It's just a bad idea for them to do nothing."
This I understand. We are a nation governed by the rule of law, and as ridiculous as that law is, it should be followed until either new legislation makes it null and void or the courts crush the FDA "deeming" pipes and cigars—America's oldest forms of tobacco enjoyment—suddenly under government control.
The most cutthroat tyrants in history—Hitler, Stalin and Mao, for example—never tried to regulate pipe makers. And, suddenly, in the United States of America, the land of the free, if you want to make pipes you now need permission from the federal government.
This will never stand. It is too stupid, too ridiculous and, frankly, too dangerous. No matter how many times the bureaucrats claim that pipe tobacco and pipes are one and the same—it does not make it so.
Let's hope the new Congress will pass a law reining in the FDA in their attempt to ban cigars and pipes from America, or the courts will side with small businesses and freedom and against the tyranny of the bureaucracy. The FDA will lose this one—I'm sure of it. Their over-reach into the territory of prohibition—something the average American abhors—will be their undoing.
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]]>I never could have imagined that, after living here for more than three decades, I would be filing a lawsuit against my beloved Los Angeles and making plans for my company, Creators Syndicate, to move elsewhere.
But we have no choice. The city's bureaucrats rival Stalin's apparatchiks in issuing decrees, rescinding them, and then punishing citizens for having followed them in the first place.
I founded Creators Syndicate in 1987, and we have represented hundreds of important writers, syndicating their columns to newspapers and Web sites around the world. The most famous include Hillary Clinton, who, like Eleanor Roosevelt, wrote a syndicated column when she was first lady. Another star was the advice columnist Ann Landers, once described by "The World Almanac" as "the most influential woman in America." Other Creators columnists include Bill O'Reilly, Susan Estrich, Thomas Sowell, Roland Martin and Michelle Malkin—plus Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonists and your favorite comic strips.
From the beginning, we've been headquartered in Los Angeles. But 15 years ago we had a dispute with the city over our business tax classification. The city argued that we should be in an "occupations and professions" classification that has an extremely high tax rate, while we fought for a "wholesale and retail" classification with a much lower rate. The city forced us to invest a small fortune in legal fees over two years, but we felt it was worth it in order to establish the correct classification once and for all.
After enduring a series of bureaucratic hearings, we anxiously awaited a ruling to find out what our tax rate would be. Everything was at stake. We had already decided that if we lost, we would move.
You can imagine how relieved we were on July 1, 1994, when the ruling was issued. We won, and firmly planted our roots in the City of Angels and proceeded to build our business.
Everything was fine until the city started running out of money in 2007. Suddenly, the city announced that it was going to ignore its own ruling and reclassify us in the higher tax category. Even more incredible is the fact that the new classification was to be imposed retroactively to 2004 with interest and penalties. No explanation was given for the new classification, or for the city's decision to ignore its 1994 ruling.
Their official position is that the city is not bound by past rulings—only taxpayers are. This is why we have been forced to file a lawsuit. We will let the courts decide whether it is legal for adverse rulings to apply only to taxpayers and not to the city.
We work with hundreds of outside agents, consultants, independent contractors and support services —many of whom pay taxes to the city of Los Angeles. This spurs a job-creating ripple effect on the city's economy. Yet I suspect many companies like ours already have quietly left town in the face of the city's taxes and regulations. This would help explain the erosion of jobs.
Regardless of the outcome of our case, the arbitrary and capricious behavior of some bureaucrats is creating a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. If we win in court, the taxpayers of Los Angeles will have lost because all those tax dollars will have been wasted on needless litigation.
If we lose in court, the remaining taxpayers in Los Angeles will have lost because their burden will continue to swell as yet another business moves its jobs—and taxpayers—to another city.
As long as City Hall operates like a banana republic, why is anyone surprised that jobs have left the city in droves and Los Angeles is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy?
Rick Newcombe is the president of Creators Syndicate. You can read more about him here. A version of this also ran in The Wall Street Journal.
The post Why We'll Leave L.A. appeared first on Reason.com.
]]>Hitler was a zealot about many things, so it is not surprising that he was an extremist on the subject of smoking, which he considered vile and disgusting. "Adolf Hitler was a fanatical opponent of tobacco," reports Time. He was fond of proclaiming that women of the Third Reich did not smoke at all, even though many of them did. In his fascinating book Cigarettes Are Sublime, Richard Klein, a professor of French at Cornell University, writes that Hitler was "a fanatically superstitious hater of tobacco smoke."
Einstein, on the other hand, was very passionate about his pipe smoking. During one lecture, he ran out of pipe tobacco and borrowed some cigarettes from his students so he could crumple the tobacco into his pipe. "Gentlemen," he said, "I believe we've made a great discovery!" He later decided that his conclusion was premature. He realized that cigarette tobacco lacks the aroma, the fullness, and the taste of pipe tobacco. But what appealed most to Einstein was the entire ritual of pipe smoking: carefully choosing from a variety of pipes and tobaccos, delicately loading the briar, puffing and tamping, and the associated contemplation. "I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs," he said in 1950 at age 71, when he became a lifetime member of the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club.
Fanatical intolerance, as opposed to moderation and consideration, is at the heart of the smoking debate in America today. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration wants to ban smoking in the workplace. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has proposed what he calls the Smoke-Free Environment Act, which would prohibit smoking in any building that is entered by 10 or more people at least one day a week (except residences, so far). What if the building is privately owned and its owner wants to smoke? Too bad. His private building will be classified as a "public facility." I am a successful entrepreneur who is responsible for sending millions of tax dollars to the state and federal governments each year—from my own taxes, from my company, from our shareholders, from our employees, from our clients, and from our vendors. This tax money finances politicians seeking to pass laws forbidding me to smoke a pipe in my own office.
In addition to the proposed smoking bans, the Clinton health plan would raise the tax on certain cigars by more than 3,000 percent, on pipe tobacco by nearly 2,000 percent, and on chewing tobacco by more than 10,000 (!) percent. Supporters of these tax hikes should read some history. King James I of England, who hated smoking as much as Henry Waxman does, raised tobacco taxes by 4,000 percent. Instead of stamping out tobacco use, he created a huge black market.
David Kessler, head of the Food and Drug Administration, wants to regulate tobacco as a drug, which under the agency's usual standards would probably mean banning it. (Can you imagine what our overcrowded prisons would be like if tobacco were banned?) New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen praises Kessler, as well as the "courageous" members of Congress who are eager to suspend the First Amendment by restricting tobacco advertising.
Smoking has been around for hundreds of years, and it won't go away, regardless of legislation. The Los Angeles Times recently observed: "Russia once whipped smokers, Turkey beheaded them and India slit their noses. The Massachusetts colony outlawed public smoking in the 1630s, and Connecticut required smokers to have permits in the 1940s. At various times between 1893 and 1921, cigarette sales were banned in North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Iowa, Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois, Utah, Kansas and Minnesota." Despite such efforts, about a billion people around the world continue to smoke.
As Klein, the Cornell professor, notes, there is a direct link between freedom and the right to smoke. He writes: "Like other tyrants such as Louis XIV, Napoleon, and Hitler, James I despised smoking and demonized tobacco. The relation between tyranny and the repression of the right to grow, sell, use, or smoke tobacco can be seen most clearly in the way movements of liberation, revolutions both political and cultural, have always placed those rights at the center of their political demands. The history of the struggle against tyrants has been frequently inseparable from that of the struggle on behalf of the freedom to smoke."
Cigarette smokers are reluctant to speak out against anti-smoking measures. It is difficult to be a moderate cigarette smoker, and the typical cigarette smoker is clearly at risk of suffering heart attacks, lung cancer, and emphysema. Despite these health hazards, adults have a right to continue smoking cigarettes. But I hope they will consider pipe smoking as an alternative. The difference between chain-smoking cigarettes and moderate pipe smoking is the difference between drinking a case of beer every day and having a glass of wine with lunch or dinner.
Pipe smoking is a fun hobby. It is relaxing. It tastes good. It feels good. It helps us unwind. It helps us cope with stress. It enhances objectivity. It facilitates contemplation. People like Waxman and Kessler never mention these intangible benefits. They just want to know if the activity in question is "good for you" in a strict biological sense. If not, or if they think it is bad for you, they will attempt to outlaw it. This sort of reasoning would also support a ban on obesity, a requirement that all Americans exercise, the prohibition of junk food, limits on alcohol and caffeine consumption, and so on. The irony is that Waxman is, frankly, a little chubby, while Kessler used to be fat (and yo-yo dieting is quite unhealthy).
Compare these two with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is as healthy as a horse and a dedicated cigar and occasional pipe smoker. I work out regularly myself. I have even trained with Arnold. In fact, I am something of a health nut. I go for a five-mile run at least once a week as part of my exercise program, which includes a minimum of four hours of strenuous workouts each week. I am in terrific physical condition. Yet I'm put on the defensive and treated as a pariah because I enjoy a pipe.
Our tax money is used to sponsor anti-smoking propaganda—official hate speech from the state. Anti-smoking billboards and TV commercials are aimed at encouraging the average citizen to loathe smoking and, by implication, smokers. Several days ago, I was standing on a street corner in Santa Monica waiting for the light to turn green. A city bus with an anti-smoking message on the side passed by, spewing filthy exhaust fumes. I crossed the street and entered the Tinder Box, a tobacco shop that was founded when Calvin Coolidge was president. The aroma was magnificent. I chatted with the store's founder, Ed Kolpin, who has come to work every day since 1928. He was puffing on his pipe, looking very contented. Ed attributes his good health and long life to the sense of peace that 65 years of relaxed and intelligent pipe smoking have given him.
Ed reminded me of a story about François Guizot, the French historian and statesman. A woman visited Guizot at his home one evening and found him absorbed in his pipe. She exclaimed, "What! You smoke, and yet have arrived at so great an age?" "Ah, madame," he said in reply, "if I had not smoked, I should have been dead 10 years ago." I believe we would have heard similar replies from many other famous pipe smokers who lived long and healthy lives, including Albert Schweitzer, Mark Twain, F.A. Hayek, Carl Sandburg, Bing Crosby, and Norman Rockwell.
An article in the Summer 1990 issue of The Compleat Smoker describes an interesting longevity study conducted in Pennsylvania during the late '60s and early '70s. An organization called No Other World performed the research with the assistance of the Northwestern Pennsylvania Lung Association and regional chapters of the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association. "In the study," reports The Compleat Smoker, "pipe smokers attained an average age of 78—two years older than their non-smoking male counterparts." This may say something about the stress-reducing benefits of pipe smoking. At the very least, it suggests that moderate pipe smoking is not a significant health hazard.
I began smoking a pipe in 1978, at the age of 28. At the time, I was a two-pack-a-day cigarette smoker. I could not run a mile without collapsing from wheezing, and on many nights my hacking cough woke me up. There was no way for me to be a moderate cigarette smoker. I decided that cigarettes were poison for me, but I still wanted to smoke, so I tried a pipe.
It took a while to get the hang of it. I suffered tongue bite; I broke one pipe because I didn't know how to handle it; I was not used to smoking without inhaling; I smoked way too fast and burned the briar on several pipes—and made a dozen other mistakes typical of the beginning pipe smoker. Pipe smoking is a ritual that requires patience and study. You can't just go to a drugstore, buy the least expensive pipe you can find, and expect to enjoy the smoke. It can take years of study and practice before your enjoyment reaches that point of contentment that only professional pipe smokers know.
When it comes to pipes, I'm strictly a beginning student. Christopher Morley wrote in 1916 that "pipe smoking is properly an intellectual exercise." I have read 17 books on the subject and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of articles, and I still learn something new every time I visit a knowledgeable tobacconist. The best overview of the subject I've seen is The Ultimate Pipe Book by Richard Carleton Hacker, a fact-filled volume written in an interesting and fun style. Pipe collecting as a hobby has become such a passion for me that I own nearly 200 pipes, some dating back to the 1920s and '30s. I know the history of nearly all of them and the biography of the pipe carver. There may be only a few pipe smokers left, but we are intelligent and dedicated.
If smoking has any future at all, it lies in moderate pipe smoking. I realize excessive pipe and cigar smoking can contribute to some forms of mouth, throat, or lip cancer, but it is the excess that is the problem. It is relatively easy, with time and practice, to be a moderate pipe smoker.
As a statement of rebellion against political correctness, it's hard to beat pipe smoking. It's not nearly as risky as smoking cigarettes, and it offers unique pleasures. A whole new world of enjoyment will open up for you once you start discovering the various types of briar, the thousands of blends of exquisite tobaccos from all over the world, the hundreds of traditional and unusual shapes, sizes, and finishes for a pipe, and the possibilities for beautiful artwork carved into meerschaum and briar pipes. Remember the advice of this century's greatest scientist: Pipe smoking facilitates relaxation and objectivity. Also keep in mind that Einstein did not worry about defying convention. And to be a pipe smoker in America in the 1990s, you really must be an individualist.
Rick Newcombe is president and CEO of Creators Syndicate.
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