What Would This Mean For Cigars?


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Read the article below in today's paper.  If not carefully worded, it seems to me this might well lead to an overnight prohibition on cigars because there is no way of determining and controlling nicotine levels in an artisanal product like longfiller cigars...

Sparks fly over cigarette nicotine limit

Some fear smokers would smoke more to compensate for lower nicotine content.
Some fear smokers would smoke more to compensate for lower nicotine content.
  • The Australian
  • 12:00AM July 27, 2018
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  • Combustible tobacco could be relegated to the ashtray of history one day if health authorities in the US manage to push through unprecedented and highly controversial rules limiting nicotine in standard cigarettes.

The US Food and Drug Administration appears committed to the idea of introducing a rule to set a maximum nicotine level for cigarettes, a level so low that cigarettes become minimally addictive or even non-addictive.

If this plan for nicotine-reduced cigarettes gets the green light, nations around the world could follow the US lead, radically changing the lives of millions of smokers. Australian authorities are watching developments with interest. This anti-smoking push, from one of the world’s largest health bodies, is sure to be fiercely resisted by retailers and tobacco growers.

Much of the feedback on the proposal, posted on the US Federal Register, has been scathing. “Honest to God, people really have to GET A LIFE and stop demonising smoking and smokers,” wrote Jenn Cunningham.

“IF smoking is going to cause a problem for someone (less than 20 per cent of users) it’ll only be after 30-40 years. You won’t beat your wife or children from smoking. Yet the taxes and excise on tobacco is several times that of alcoholic products? NO tax, not even sin or luxury taxes, should ever exceed more than 25 per cent of the product’s price.”

Experts fear that even if the proposal is passed it will face mammoth difficulties in its implementation. A rule that renders cigarettes nearly nicotine-free would likely give rise to a black market in higher-nicotine tobacco, just as the Prohibition era in the US spawned a thriving market in moonshine.

The FDA also has flagged the possibility that these very low nicotine cigarettes (or VLNCs, as they have become known) can be seen as “healthier” than ordinary cigarettes, which then may encourage more smoking. Nicotine-addicted smokers, too, may try to add liquid nicotine to the VLNCs.

Nevertheless, to provide a weighty backdrop for its proposal, the FDA commissioned a study into the possible consequences of introducing VLNCs. The report on the study, titled Potential Public Health Effects of Reducing Nicotine Levels in Cigarettes in the US, was published earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine and concluded that limiting nicotine in cigarettes could be a useful measure.

“Our findings show that reducing the nicotine level in cigarettes has the potential to substantially reduce the enormous burden of smoking-related death and disease,” the study’s authors write. “We estimate that a nicotine product standard for cigarettes in the United States could save millions of lives and tens of millions of life-years over the next several decades.”

Big Tobacco appears to be resigned to big changes on the way. Philip Morris International chief executive Andre Calantzopoulos said: “PMI has previously expressed support for (FDA) commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s com­prehensive tobacco and nicotine regulation plan, which encourages the development of innovative new tobacco products that may be less harmful than cigarettes.”

The FDA proposal would reportedly limit nicotine to 0.3mg to 0.5mg per gram of tobacco in a cigarette, compared with the 10mg to 14mg of nicotine now in an ordinary cigarette.

In Australia, nicotine gum, lozenges, sprays and patches have helped many Australians quit or minimise smoking, but the government so far has refused to legalise e-cigarettes, which contain nicotine and provide the familiar hand-to-mouth ritual of smoking but do not burn tobacco, the most dangerous way of getting a hit of nicotine.

Cancer Council Australia policy director Paul Grogan says he and his colleagues are watching the developments in the US “with interest”.

But, he adds, “on the matter of production regulation, the current evidence is stronger for the benefits of banning all flavourings, including menthol, and banning so-called filter innovations. These product features cause harm and could be eradi­cated through appropriate government intervention. Before looking closely at new experimental options like nicotine reduction, government should be reviving its commitment to mass media anti-smoking campaigns.”

Colin Mendelsohn, a tobacco treatment expert at the University of NSW, says the FDA is committed to reducing nicotine in cigarettes as part of a comprehensive plan to control smoking in the US.

‘The other key element of the proposal is to provide safer alternatives to smoking, such as e-cigarettes for smokers who wish to continue nicotine,” he says. “E-cigarettes provide nicotine in a cleaner form without the combustion that causes most of the health effects of smoking.”

The data on VLNCs are mixed, he adds. Some experts fear smokers would smoke many more cigarettes to compensate for the lower nicotine content, but the response has been that VLNCs simply wouldn’t contain enough nicotine to encourage that practice.

There is also some fear that eliminating full nicotine cigarettes would add fuel to the smouldering problem of cigarette smuggling and illicit tobacco crops that now exists in Australia, largely encouraged by the sky-high tax the government now levies on tobacco.

“Prohibition does not work for most things and there is sure to be an illegal supply of contraband tobacco provided by organised crime groups,” Mendelsohn says. “On the other hand, it may help to reduce uptake by young people, who are unlikely to get addicted.”

VLNCs would have to replace all standard cigarettes on the market, he warns, because addicted smokers would not smoke them voluntarily.

And such a heavy-handed measure could give rise to any number of problems, as well as a nation dealing with millions of cranky smokers forced to cope with nicotine cravings, or turning to illicit tobacco.

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2 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Looks like it would apply only to cigarettes.

Premium cigars have a much lower nicotine content than cigarettes anyway.

Nice try!  Cigars (in part because of size) have 10 to 20 times more nicotine than a cigarette.  Really a pack of cigarettes = 1 cigar in terms of nicotine. 

Guess we can argue that we age away our nicotine!

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There is another thread going on right now about smoking cigars late at night and impact on sleep.   Lot of people can't have late cigars because the nicotine keeps them up.

I am no expert here and I don't get a rush from nicotine.  So I have no idea the impact of nicotine on most.

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3 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Looks like it would apply only to cigarettes.

Premium cigars have a much lower nicotine content than cigarettes anyway.

:mad: Yes, WE know that...it's getting the "Having to lump everything together as the same thing nicotine-level-wise" law makers that need to acknowledge that. And it really pisses me the Hell off because my life insurance cost is CRAZY because I have to put down that I use tobacco - only an occasional handmade cigar. If only we can get the folks in charge, with all the power, to realize that there is a MARKED difference between quality cigars and cancer-stick cigarettes then there'd be a better balance in the stuff they're wanting to do. And in spite of my earlier statement I don't believe in being "Mama Square Breeches" toward cigarette smokers. That's their right. Yet, as I emphasized earlier, somebody NEEDS to grab the lawmakers by the nape of their necks and MAKE them see the difference in nicotine levels in cigars than in cigarettes. They need to have pointed out to them HOW LONG regular cigar smokers have lived...into their 80's and 90's. Okay, off my soap box.

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21 minutes ago, cigcars said:

:mad: Yes, WE know that...it's getting the "Having to lump everything together as the same thing nicotine-level-wise" law makers that need to acknowledge that. And it really pisses me the Hell off because my life insurance cost is CRAZY because I have to put down that I use tobacco - only an occasional handmade cigar. If only we can get the folks in charge, with all the power, to realize that there is a MARKED difference between quality cigars and cancer-stick cigarettes then there'd be a better balance in the stuff they're wanting to do. And in spite of my earlier statement I don't believe in being "Mama Square Breeches" toward cigarette smokers. That's their right. Yet, as I emphasized earlier, somebody NEEDS to grab the lawmakers by the nape of their necks and MAKE them see the difference in nicotine levels in cigars than in cigarettes. They need to have pointed out to them HOW LONG regular cigar smokers have lived...into their 80's and 90's. Okay, off my soap box.

why would we point out that nicotine levels in cigars are 10-20 times higher than in cigarettes?

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2 hours ago, Monterey said:

why would we point out that nicotine levels in cigars are 10-20 times higher than in cigarettes?

    *As cigars are the product of sun, aging, and time I'd read in past articles that the deadlier part of the nicotine is aged out, and you have just pure leaf left, so to speak. And while cigarettes may not be of the "free based" nature as said earlier, cigarette tobacco executives have had to face panels and committees that have forced the truth out that certain really cancer causing chemicals are added to the cigarettes in order to make them more addictive. It may not be so much the nicotine alone that causes such harm to the lungs as much as those additional lab produced chemicals in themselves. We know cigarettes kill, yet I've seen persons who were two or more pack-a -dayers living into their 80's too. However, these are persons in other countries who may be smoking cigarettes made of just the tobacco alone. Yes they get the Big C, but they live a relatively long time, just saying.

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This here, and the idea behind this 'yet-another' FDA's sanctionary move, is about the addictive potential of nicotine. And that is a strong function of the wash-in rate of this stimulans into the bloodplasma, less so its absolute concentration. The wash-in has a strong effect on your brain's reward center, and is responsible for most if not all of the addictive effect. Apart from the fact that cigar tobacco, as its smoke, does contain much lower nic levels, inhaling cigarette smoke (the acidity of the smoke plays a role as well, which is also a function of the type of tobacco, as well as additives) causes a very quick wash-in, and as such provokes an immediate physiological effect. As everybody on this forum will know, this exactly is not the case with smoking cigars, and that is why nobody here is an addict, at least not to nicotin. :D

So this is nothing we have to fear, as we are not concerned.

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I was under the impression that the main health issue with cigarettes isn't necessarily the nicotine but all the other chemical crap that's in them. If people feel the need to smoke more low nicotine cigarettes then the damage from these other chemicals and compound will increase. Patches, pills, gums and vapes all deliver nicotine without the cigarette and are touted by health professionals as the healthier option. This proposal sounds like very bad science indeed. But, facts and proof always get in the way of a good bit of righteous indignation. Can't see it getting anywhere.

 

Sent from my ActionMan walkie-talkie

 

 

 

 

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34 minutes ago, Fugu said:

This here, and the idea behind this 'yet-another' FDA's sanctionary move, is about the addictive potential of nicotine. And that is a strong function of the wash-in rate of this stimulans into the bloodplasma, less so its absolute concentration. The wash-in has a strong effect on your brain's reward center, and is responsible for most if not all of the addictive effect. Apart from the fact that cigar tobacco, as its smoke, does contain much lower nic levels, inhaling cigarette smoke (the acidity of the smoke plays a role as well, which is also a function of the type of tobacco, as well as additives) causes a very quick wash-in, and as such provokes an immediate physiological effect. As everybody on this forum will know, this exactly is not the case with smoking cigars, and that is why nobody here is an addict, at least not to nicotin. :D

So this is nothing we have to fear, as we are not concerned.

        *Yes, no doubt. The only I thing that I'm addicted to cigar-wise is hunting for rarities and treasures among them and buying them!  Yet, when the money is funny I have to just sit and swoon with desire, but not D.T.'s, tremors, and nail-biting lying awake, eyes wide and mumbling to myself! I suppose if I was swimming in riches I'd have to have a whole room dedicated to their storage as I'd buy them constantly...that's my thrill, that's my fix. But my smoking them in fact has died down a little bit these days. That's the way it's been through the years. There were times I went years without a smoke, and times I'd enjoy maybe 2 in a day once or twice a week. 

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50 minutes ago, Akela3rd said:

I was under the impression that the main health issue with cigarettes isn't necessarily the nicotine but all the other chemical crap that's in them. If people feel the need to smoke more low nicotine cigarettes then the cabbage from these other chemicals and compound will increase. Patches, pills, gums and vapes all deliver nicotine without the cigarette and are touted by health professionals as the healthier option. This proposal sounds like very bad science indeed. But, facts and proof always get in the way of a good bit of righteous indignation. Can't see it getting anywhere.

Sent from my ActionMan walkie-talkie
 

Exactly! This is the flaw and misconception behind this actionism: Past moves towards "light" cigarettes have already shown that cigarette smokers smoke more (higher rate) and inhale deeper to compensate for that lower nic content. The simple reason is - they smoke cigarettes because they want that reward. They are smoking for nicotine, not for taste and sensory enjoyment. Limiting nic-levels in cigarettes will have zero effect - quite the reverse - it will be counteractive because cig-smokers will likely smoke more, and by doing so, the intake of truly toxic substances will be higher, as the concentration of harmful components won't change. (nicotine in itself is neither cancerogenic, nor is it toxic in the amounts usually taken in by cigar smokers - it works just as a stimulant or sedative, dose-dependent, but is responsible for the addictive effect in smoking).

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... and this is also likely why this finds the support of the cig-industry - they see boosted sales ahead... :devil2:

" Philip Morris International chief executive Andre Calantzopoulos said: “PMI has previously expressed support for (FDA) commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s com­prehensive tobacco and nicotine regulation plan, which encourages the development of innovative new tobacco products that may be less harmful than cigarettes.” "

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....and here you see the hypocrisy in all this:

" ‘The other key element of the proposal is to provide safer alternatives to smoking, such as e-cigarettes for smokers who wish to continue nicotine,” he says. “E-cigarettes provide nicotine in a cleaner form without the combustion that causes most of the health effects of smoking.” "

So? - E-cigarettes are "good" because they deliver nicotine in a 'cleaner form' (addictive effects should be similar to real cigarettes as it is likewise inhaled) - but on the other hand FDA intends to "dilute" that nicotine with more 'dirty' tobacco...

FDA staff should be the ones to start get their brain cells stimulated.

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wow, this conversation has done a 180.  This is about nicotine levels, not about other things added to them.  Sorry cigcars, nicotine has not aged out of our cigars.  Perhaps in time they may (not an expert on half life of nicotine) .  We have all had a cigar kick our butt from time to time

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Extract nicotine from a pack's-worth of cigarettes (basic kitchen chemistry).  Introduce said extract into each cigarette from another pack. BOOM! Outsmarted the politicians *again*!  :ph34r:

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20 hours ago, Monterey said:

Nice try!  Cigars (in part because of size) have 10 to 20 times more nicotine than a cigarette.  Really a pack of cigarettes = 1 cigar in terms of nicotine. 

Guess we can argue that we age away our nicotine!

I didn't think I needed to explain that I wasn't comparing total nicotine content between cigars and cigarettes as tobacco content is generally much greater in a cigar than in a cigarette.

Perhaps I was vague in my wording so I might have said nicotine content in cigarette tobacco is greater than cigar tobacco comparing the same quantity of tobacco. Same as caffeine content is greater in tea than in coffee. Yes, a 12oz coffee will have more caffeine than a 4oz cup of tea...I think we get it.

In fact, Cuban cigar tobacco in particular has the lowest nicotine content of all cigar-producing regions.

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On 7/27/2018 at 5:13 AM, JackofSpeed said:

Probably, but no way the body absorbs nicotine the way inhaling a cigarette does.

Ohhh yes it does. There are two chemical forms of nicotine: basic and acid. One is absorbed only through the lung membrane the other can not pass there but is absorbed through the walls of the mouth and nose. That’s why you hardly get any nicotine absorption if you keep cig smoke in mouth alone. On the other hand you don’t have to inhale cigar smoke to the lungs as it’s nicotine will not pass here. 

Cigars contain a ton of nicotine, at least a weight to weight ratio equal to cigarettes and often more since many countries regulate the level of permisssible nicotine in cigarettes and the tobacco used is therefore light in nicotine. I’d say a RAG contains equal to 2 packs of cigarettes at least, so if you can’t handle nicotine, keep as far away as possible?

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10 hours ago, Hookmaker said:

Ohhh yes it does. There are two chemical forms of nicotine: basic and acid. One is absorbed only through the lung membrane the other can not pass there but is absorbed through the walls of the mouth and nose. That’s why you hardly get any nicotine absorption if you keep cig smoke in mouth alone. On the other hand you don’t have to inhale cigar smoke to the lungs as it’s nicotine will not pass here. 

You'd better check your sources.

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I read a study a number of years ago that stated that the processing of cigarette tobacco changes the nicotine to be more bioavailable whereas the processing of cigar tobacco does not. Therefore, while there is much more nicotine in a cigar compared to a cigarette, as pointed out by numerous reasons in this thread, the bioavailability of the nicotine plays a major role in how much nicotine the body absorbs and how much goes into the air. Not that this adds to the conversation about the article but maybe it adds to the side convo on nicotine in cigars.?

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