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[ INDUSTRY NEWS]
Attorneys general take on cigarette-like little cigars
On May 18, the National Association of Attorneys General announced that attorneys general in 40 states have filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau asking the agency to close what they say is a loophole that allows tobacco manufacturers to “pass off cigarettes wrapped in brown paper as ‘little cigars.’”
The petition asks the TTB to change the way its rules and regulations classify “little cigars” and to change its policy of allowing tobacco companies to classify their own products in a way that avoids public health restrictions and taxes that are placed on cigarettes. They say it also allows manufacturers to circumvent the landmark 1998 tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, which imposes significant additional public health restrictions on the advertising, promotion and marketing of cigarettes by tobacco companies, particularly to youth.
They say most public health restrictions, including the restrictions in the MSA, apply to cigarettes and not to little cigars.
They say the petition is not aimed at traditional large cigars, or their miniature counterparts, but at the many “little cigars” now appearing that are indistinguishable from cigarettes. “The Attorneys General assert that such ‘little cigars,’ which are the same size and shape of cigarettes, have filter tips like cigarettes, and are packaged in traditional cigarette packaging, are actually cigarettes disguised in brown wrappers.” the release states.
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