Importer tries to get around clove smoke ban
By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM (AP) – 5 days ago
RICHMOND, Va. — The nation's top distributor of clove cigarettes is offering fans a new way to get their fix after the spice-flavored cigarettes are banned later this year — cigars.
The new filtered cigars — close to the size of a cigarette and flavored with clove, vanilla and cherry — allow Kretek International Inc., which imports Djarum-brand tobacco products from Indonesia, to avoid new federal laws banning flavored cigarettes other than menthol.
The ban on flavored cigarettes, which critics say appeal to teenagers, goes into effect at the end of September. It doesn't include cigars.
The difference? Cigarettes are wrapped in thin paper, cigars in tobacco leaves. While the cigars also are made with a different kind of tobacco, the taste is similar. The cigars come 12 to a pack, rather than 20 for cigarettes, but cost nearly half as much.
The ban is one of the first visible effects of a new law signed by President Barack Obama in June that gives the Food and Drug Administration wide-ranging authority to regulate tobacco, though it can't ban nicotine or tobacco outright.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jZQ3Ygc0-ofXntFVVNoA8IusFU-QD9AIH5G81The fundies won again, you can no longer commit certain sins - but the non-believers have found a way around the puritans.
I just don't know what I would do if people weren't pushing their beliefs and ideas down my throat and passing laws to save me. I would just be lost with such freedom.....