Most Floridians watched Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Square off in the final presidential debate in Las Vegas, Nevada Wednesday night, but during the day, candidates for elected office in Florida were feverishly campaigning for votes.
One of those candidates was US Senator Marco Rubio, who was in Tampa addressing egregious federal regulations against Big Cigar.Unlike this country’s biggest cigar aficionado, President Bill Clinton, Rubio, who is also a puffer cigars himself, was “hands on” about the new cigar-only regulation at the J.C. Newman Cigar Co.
To be fair, Clinton was also once or twice “hands on” when it came to cigars, only his cigar stroking had nothing to do with pushing back on President Obama’s Food and Drug Administration regulations.
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Big Tobacco has been targeted and hit hard by the Obama administration. Considering that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and other health problems, the tobacco industry has been on the defensive for years.
These new regulations that have taken effect target premium cigars and could put some small cigar companies like J.C. Newman Cigars out of business.
The anti-Tobacco lobby is quick to tell consumers that cigars are no different from cigarettes.Wrong.
Cigars are not consumed by the masses.
Rubio agrees.
“This is a law that was passed to keep cigarettes and harmful tobacco products out of the hands of young people and children, and I don’t think any of us disagree with that.”
Anybody who knows about the premium cigar industry knows it’s not an industry that targets or is consumed by young Americans.”Rubio also brought up Obama’s new U.S.-Cuba foreign policy as hurdle for small cigar companies.
According to Rubio, Obama’s new executive order lifting restrictions on the importing of cigars and rum from Cuba will hurt these small tobacco companies.
“It’s unfair to allow those unregulated products into the country and at the same time put onerous regulations on American cigar makers.”
Looking out for ‘Small Cigar’ is a bipartisan effort, as Rubio and his colleague , Sen. Bill Nelson (D) have co-sponsored legislation exempting cigars from these regulations.
The Rubio-Nelson bill is the Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act.
