Mayor Bloomberg signed a bill banning the sale of "most forms of flavored tobacco products" into law yesterday. City Room reports, "The new law is more extensive than the federal Food and Drug Administration’s ban on candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes, which took effect last month," as it covers "chocolate, vanilla, honey, candy, cocoa, dessert, alcoholic beverage, herb or spice flavors" and includes cigars and smokeless tobacco (the federal law bans only cigarettes). However, "tobacco, menthol, mint or wintergreen flavors" are still for sale!





Yes, because apparently, some flavors are more evil than others?? Huh??? I don't even smoke and it doesn't make any damn sense.
As an ex-smoker and supporter helping people quit the addiction...I find this ban idiotic and senseless. What's next, a ban on Schnapps and mojitos?
Where are all the kids going to get honey flavored dutchies from now?
WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?
i better stock up on vanilla dutches. that's a bunch of bullshit. no kid gets hooked on smoking cigars. cigarettes, maybe. but cigars like that are only used for rolling blunts and THAT IS WAY TOO IMPORTANT TO MESS WITH MR. BLOOMBERG.
Jimmy McMillan just won himself my vote next week.
Me too.
Seriously. Where am I going to get my strawberry flavored Phillies now?
this little prick is like the tobacco Quixote.
Cloves are retarded. The only people I see smoking them are Star Trek fans and WOW addicts.
What is wrong with Star Trek or World of Warcraft? Unless your answer is "Star Wars & Dungeons & Dragons are better," then go sit on a tack. Geek pop culture is the haps, pops!
I hate smokers. They put poison in their body, poison in every one else's air, & litter. On top of that, they get addicted, & need to keep doing it.
That said, a Prohibition hurts everyone. Taxes, baby! 20 dollars a pack, that is the way to go with this.
does this cover flavored tobaccos in Hookah bars?
wtf! what am i supposed to smoke when i go to albion?
B&H, Silk Butts, Rothies
They even have Camel and Marlboro but they're black and blue but we don't about that..
Why make it illegal, why not just put a 5 dollar tax on flavoured cigs...
then there can be a blunt party to protest.
Thats closed dammit.
when will tobacco flavored tabacco be banned?
Wow...freedom?
I'm not a smoker. Ex. But what right does this guy have to ban an otherwise perfectly legal substance? And over the sale of others? It's senseless and an abusive of power.
Bloomberg's going a bit too far. Maybe another term would go to his head and we should let him get back to the corporate world where he can do as he wants, regardless of the rights of others who may disagree.
Agreed. There is no evidence that flavor cigarettes are a "gateway" for kids to become addicted smokers. And if there was, banning them from the adult population in the name of "what about the children" is absurd and an infringement on our rights.
BAN ALL CIGARETTES!
while you puritans are at it why not ban:
drinking
dancing
skirts above the knee
frisbee
music
butterflies
tomfoolery
babies
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091028090521.htm
is this news? the american cancer society is against smoking? any other shockers up your sleeve?
point: the government cannot and should not try to legislate good taste. open a book, a read about the successes of prohibition.
"Oh, those old "Cancer" fuddy duddys! with their high falutin' not wanting people to get cancer. Of course THEY are against it. Jerks!"
you're absolutely right, i have seen the light. please, bureaucrats legislate my life. i can't handle it all by my wee little self. i need a bottle, a burp, and a quick nap.
thanks for your helpful guidance.
You know what I hate. Why am I not allowed to drive while drinking? I'm a good enough driver, trust me. I won't drink too much. I'm just saying making it illegal to drive while drinking is infringing on my precious freedoms. Right, isn't that the 1st Amendment? Freedom to do stupid things? It isn't? What?!?
Hey Mordicai,
This is a larger issue than the surface level of "candy flavored tobacco".
I actually find my freedoms as a citizen of the United States to be one of my most precious possesions, and I don't really like the tone you address those freedoms with considering several friends and family members have died in the preservation of those same freedoms that some douchebag ultra-rich power tripping economic monarch is stripping from me one at a time. Since when did he become my parent? When did he get the right to decide what I put into my body? I was under the impression that after a certain age I was allowed to be responsible for my own actions. Where do I apply for my Living License, and how long is the test to prove I am an adult? And wtf does this have to do with drunk driving?
sodomy!
...and Cigarettes. a new film by Jim Jarmusch
Cloves banned. Massive exodus of goths to follow?
WAIT! does this mean no more dutches? what's a girl to do...
I'm not a smoker, but I'm against prohibition of any kind. We should not be celebrating a stronger Nanny state.
Why should I pay higher premiums because of the bad habits of those under the same health plan (Smokers, Fatties, etc)
You right. We should force all citizens to be on a highly regulated diet and lifestyle.
People should do whatever they want, but it sucks to have to pay for other's lack of personal responsibility. Thankfully only weirdos smoke cloves so very few will be affected.
till they move on to other things deemed "lack of personal responsibility"...
I think its a dangerous and slippery slope. (Again, I'm not a smoker, just someone who finds prohibitions troublesome.)
totally agreed.
very excessive. does this include wine flavored black & milds?
Wine flavored?! I've been living under a rock!
This is where Bloomberg loses me; when he goes on one of his nanny state jihads.
If he instead had just signed a bill that would have graffiti vandals flogged in Times Sq, he'd get a fourth and fifth term too.
the mayor didn't start it obama did. let me find the article.
Bloomberg was an anti-smoking crusade back when Obama was a nobody in the state senate voting "present" when he bothered to show up at all.
Obama is a hypocrite lol, he smokes.
The Food and Drug Administration said this morning that it is, effective immediately, banning cigarettes with fruit, candy or clove flavors because they lure adolescents into smoking. "Almost 90% of adult smokers start smoking as teenagers. These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers," said FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg. Studies have shown that 17-year-old smokers are three times as likely to use flavored cigarettes as those over the age of 25.
In June, President Obama signed into law a bill that would allow the FDA to regulate tobacco, although it cannot ban tobacco or smoking outright. The agency is now considering measures to regulate menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco products other than cigarettes.
The FDA sent a letter to tobacco companies last week outlining its plans. The letter said that any company that continues to make, ship or sell flavored cigarettes will be subject to FDA enforcement action.
The agency urged parents and others to report continued sales of flavored cigarettes through a special tobacco hotline by phone ([877] CTP-1373) or on the Internet (www.fda.gov/flavoredtobacco).
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/09/fda-bans-flavored-cigarettes.html
The Indonesian government is considering filing a complaint with the WTO over the clove ban because it impacts their farmers and because menthol wasn't included in the ban which suggests an unfair trade practice favoring US tobacco makers.
The menthol cigarettes (yes it's flavored!) has been documented to be much worse for you than a normal cigarette and definitely a cherry flavored one, too. But we might have LA-style riots if we banned those.
And goth kids throughout the City weep.
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS
gonna have to start having those Grape Swishers shipped from TX.
yeah. cloves illegal. but i can still smoke a joint in the middle of the afternoon on st. marks without getting so much as a sideways glance.
'land of the free,' people.
First I hate Bloomie.
I'm pretty sure an insurance co. has the right to charge higher premiums to people that smoke. They can probably refuse to insure a smoker all together.
I do not like the idea of anyone telling me what to do with my body.
Be it freedom of choice for women, getting a vaccine, drinking or smoking- who the hell do they think they are?
When the constitution was writ people had firearms to defend their rights.
Now the qualities of life that are lacking in New York are being ignored while stupidity prevails.
I just can't make any connection with Bloomie's ideas and my (lower middle class) benefit.
A woman said we can't afford Thompson because Bloomie only gets $1 a year salary.
Well, I did not get my dollars worth.
Nonsense. Stupid.
This is the erosion of your freedoms unfolding before your eyes. After this, the next legislation will be for issuing tickets to people who are smoking cloves since they obviously obtained them via illegal means. Then, the FDA will step up the regulation of tobacco, and the only cigarettes available will be issued by the government.
In other words, this is one of the many first small steps in a total tobacco prohibition.
Wow - what is next? The government bans fruit-flavored alcohol because teenagers are using it? Tobacco is LEGAL. What a joke. This seriously angers me. And has been pointed out above, this was the FDA that did this.
http://www.fda.gov/TobaccoProducts/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/FlavoredTobacco/default.htm
"Any company who continues to make, ship or sell such products may be subject to FDA enforcement actions."
Insane. Fuck you Bloomberg and the NY City Council.
Some things don't change...
I didn't start smoking because I wanted a cherry flavored cigarette!! I started smoking because my juvenile delinquent sister hid cartons of cigs under her bed. I thought she was the coolest girl ever & idolized everything she did. I was 13. She was 19. I also stole her spandex bicycle shorts and wore them to school periodically. And I used to steal her makeup and put it on every day as I rode the school bus. My fav was the sea-foam green eyeshadow. Later that year when she got pregnant out of wedlock, I shifted my idolization to the juvenile delinquent girl next door. She had a real Barbie Townhouse...and a Ken doll. My mom never bought me a Ken doll. Only Barbies. The girl next door & I found out that neither her mom nor her mom's live-in lesbian lover cared much if a pack or two was missing from their cartons. Life was good.
Now I'm a broke actor in NYC! I have 3 college degrees in nothing that will pay me a living wage. My life rocks! I fail to see how juvenile smoking did me any harm. It only helped me see through the man's bullsh** at a very young age. Although I love NYC, if it gets much worse I'm moving to Charlotte, NC. Big Tobacco is still king there. You can still smoke inside. I have seen smokers nearly weep at this realization. Its a smokers wonderland!!