And "cigarette" means "small cigar".

How, then, could anyone argue that "little cigars" are anything other than "cigarettes"?

Forty states have asked the U.S. Treasury Department to bar tobacco companies from marketing products they say are identical to cigarettes as "little cigars," a designation the states say lets the firms evade taxes and target younger consumers.

Attorneys general from the 40 states, including Maryland, want the department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to reverse decades-old rules that permit products the size, shape and weight of cigarettes, but have brown rather than white wrappers, to be labeled as little cigars.

"If it looks like a cigarette, smokes like a cigarette and is being marketed like a cigarette, then the federal government should classify it as a cigarette," said Bill Roach, spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, co-chairman of the National Association of Attorneys General tobacco committee. The attorneys general also said the "little cigars" appeal to young smokers because they cost less than cigarettes and come with flavorings such as chocolate and raspberry.

The "little cigar" label allows the companies to pay lower federal and state taxes, and to avoid payments and advertising restrictions required for cigarettes under the 1998 master agreement between tobacco companies and all 50 states, according to the petition for rule changes.

Personally, I find the distinction to be ludicrous, and urge that the definitions be revised and the regulatory scheme made more sensible by placing all cigars in the same category as cigarettes.

Of course, I also think that the mandatory warning labels and advertising restrictions should be dropped as antithetical to notions of liberty and freedom of speech -- for both compelled and forbidden speech are examples of government censorship.

Posted by: Greg at 10:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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