Cigar Rights of America Facilitates International Support Against FDA Regulation of Cigars
Cigar Rights of America Facilitates International Support
Against FDA Regulation of Cigars
Fairfax, VA – Cigar Rights of America announced this week a dramatic new measure in the
effort to combat federal regulation of cigars. CRA has not just been working the halls of
Congress since legislation was filed to protect cigars from potentially threatening
regulations by the US Food & Drug Administration. The organization has also been engaging in a brand of shuttle diplomacy among the primary cigar producing nations of Latin America.
Last week, following several months of meetings and groundwork, a joint letter was issued
by the Ambassadors to the United States for Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican
Republic.
Facilitated by Cigar Rights of America, the staff of each embassy has been kept apprised
of the legislation filed in 2011 to protect cigars from FDA oversight, which finished
2012 with 221 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives, and fourteen in the U.S.
Senate. The bills are currently being resubmitted for the 113th Congress.
While previous joint letters have been sent to the members of the House and Senate
committees for foreign affairs by the Honduran and Dominican Republic ambassadors, this
is the first joint statement of all three, and sent directly to the Obama Administration.
Signed by Ambassador to the U.S. for Honduras Jorge Ramon Hernandez-Alcerro, Ambassador to the U.S. for the Dominican Republic Anibal de Castro, and Ambassador to the U.S. for Nicaragua Francisco Campbell, the letter highlights the economic significance of the premium cigar industry to each of their respective nations, and why the government of the United States should not promote regulations that can pose threats to the industry.
The letter states, “If history is any precedent, some of the regulations that could be
imposed by the agency would prove disastrous to the centuries old cigar industry that
provides over 350,000 jobs among our three nations, and represents millions of dollars in
export revenue. No regulatory measure should threaten such jobs, and hence raise the
specter of political and economic consequences within our region.â€
The letter further notes that premium cigars were neither a target nor the intent of
Congress, when it passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The
ambassadors point out that the legislation pending in Congress, as well as letters sent
from Members of the House and Senate to the FDA, “serves to echo our deep concern about
the direction and intentions of FDA.â€
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Also HB 1639 has been replaced by HB 792 as of this morning. We will need to resign petitions to Congress and the White House.