Wednesday, May 27 2009
Source:
General Cigar Corp.
As part of our continuing effort to keep you apprised of what's going on in Washington, the following is a legislative update.
During the week of May 17th, the United States Congress took action on two pieces of tobacco related legislation – the FDA and PACT bills.
The Senate Health Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee passed its version of the FDA legislation over tobacco (S. 982) by a 15-8 vote. After the Memorial Day recess, it is expected that this legislation (which grants the FDA the authority to regulate the marketing, sale and production of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco and reserves the right to govern cigars and pipe tobacco in the future) will move on to the full Senate for consideration. One can expect that there will be quite a bit of activity to have amendments made to S. 982, which is essentially identical to the House version of FDA legislation that passed earlier this year. We will continue to keep you apprised of developments concerning this important piece of legislation.
Since many of our customers also sell cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, we wanted to make you aware of the PACT legislation which notably does not impact cigars. The House of Representatives recently passed HR 1676, the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act (PACT). Despite its title, PACT applies to both cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, but excludes cigars. PACT imposes restrictions on the shipment of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco directly to consumers by catalogue and internet based sellers. Specifically, PACT requires that such sellers adopt age verification procedures both at the order taking and delivery phases of direct to consumer transactions, to register with the states, and to provide records of direct to consumer sales. In addition, PACT imposes state tax collection obligations on these sellers. Finally, PACT prohibits direct to consumer sales via the US Postal Service. The legislation will now move over to the Senate for consideration.
