The gullible American people and their Chicken Little politicritters love a good epidemic. One woman gets Zika? Epidemic. Someone run over by a texting driver? Epidemic. Banksters and pols loot 99% of the value out of the Dollar while squashing civil liberties? Epid … oops, nevermind that one…
I just read about the next great epidemic – Benzos! Valium reminds some doctor a lot of the opioid crisis! Crisis. Epidemic. Same thing. We’ll need a new law and some more regs! Maybe the FDA can get around to that once they cure another great epidemic – pregnant women smoking cigars…
Come August 10th, retail cigars (to include individual units) must be accompanied by one of the following six warning labels: herein, my review:
WARNING: Cigar smoking can cause cancers of the mouth and throat, even if you do not inhale.
A lie. See explanation below.
WARNING: Cigar smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease.
A lie. See immediately below.
WARNING: Cigars are not a safe alternative to cigarettes.
Part lie, part category error. Cigars are safe (FDA studies say so). However, they’re not an alternative to cigarettes, at all, with next to nothing in common except the burning aspect. Cigarettes are paper wrapped chemicals, tar, and, maybe, a little cheap tobacco. Cigars are pure, 100%, natural, organic, Earth-friendly, environmentally responsible tobacco from the best fields. Not just a lie, an eco-lie (very bad).
WARNING: Tobacco smoke increases the risk of lung cancer and heart disease, even in nonsmokers.
Yet another lie.
WARNING: Cigar use while pregnant can harm you and your baby.
or
SURGEON GENERAL WARNING: Tobacco Use Increases the Risk of Infertility, Stillbirth and Low Birth Weight.*
Now they involve the poor Surgeon General. This one is either a lie OR another false conflation. Again, it’s cigars, not cigarettes. And, women constitute something like 0.5% of all cigar smokers. Pregnant women are around, I’m guessing here, 0.000000%. Totally irrelevant and utterly stupid. I challenge the FDA to present one single case, ever, of any baby negatively affected by cigars. Scratch that. I challenge the FDA to pack up New Hampshire Avenue and just get the hell out of America and out our lives. I say they can’t do it. Let ’em prove me wrong!
WARNING: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.
Believe it, or not, this one is not a complete lie. Rather, it’s a false syllogism of sorts, in reverse, kind of. Like this:
Major premise: Nicotine is bad.
Minor premise: Cigars contain nicotine.
Conclusion: Warrants a warning.
Again, again, again … cigars differ in many ways from cigarettes. Premium cigar makers do not add additional nicotine (or anything else) to the wrappers, binders, or fillers that constitute that lovely leafy goodness. Said leaf by itself does, in fact, contain a little nicotine. But, so do: tea leaves, eggplants, potatoes, peppers, cauliflower, and tomatoes.
Do these eggplant-IQ’d busybodies go around warning mums to be about the dangers of real eggplants? Could be; it’s a big CFR… Yet another government, elsewhere – the Royal Society for Public Health – just determined that scary, addictive nicotine is “no more dangerous than the caffeine in a cup of coffee.”
I get it, I get it. Warning labels on coffee come next…
With all these warnings floating around, I thought I might add one that isn’t based on complete BS. This:
****
GOVERNMENT WARNING!
Government is the most dangerous non-natural thing in existence, possibly more destructive than a gamma-ray burst. Government is not a safe alternative to freedom.
-or-
Take your labels and shove ’em.
******
Feel free to post that by the cash register.
