Three of the most powerful members of the House of Representatives have requested the grandfather date used for the proposed regulations of tobacco products by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) be moved to a date no earlier than April 25, 2014. Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, House Majority Leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Fred Upton, R-Mich., the Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, co-authored a letter that will be welcome news to cigar smokers. It was addressed to Sylvia Burwell, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the FDA, and Mitch Zeller, director for the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. In it, they requested the date for the grandfathering of tobacco products be moved from Feb. 15, 2007 to April 25, 2014—the day the proposed regulations were announced—or the date in which is enacted, which will be in 2015 at the earliest. Regardless of how the FDA regulates premium cigars, any product that was being marketed prior to Feb. 15, 2007 will be grandfathered in. Even if the strictest rules are imposed on premium cigars, the only changes manufacturers will have to make to these ...
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