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This week marked the first major attack on cigarettes since the death of Joe Camel back in 1997.
In July, President Obama signed legislation granting the F.D.A. the authority to regulate tobacco products, and regulate they did.
According to the New York Times, health officials started banning the sale of flavored cigarettes. The future of other flavored tobacco products, such as small cigars and cigarillos, is uncertain but not looking good.
While the flavored genre provided less than 1 percent of the $87 billion generated by cigarettes last year, it was a symbolically important percent point.
What appears on the surface to be a noble effort to protect children form addiction is, in reality, a pretty big blow to capitalism. The tobacco industry may not be losing a lot of money but they are losing a great deal of freedom.
Think about cigarettes for a moment. What comes to mind? Smoke, coughing, cancer. Nothing good, right? By having the option of adding flavor to their product, the tobacco companies can broaden their appeal and expand the market in order to make more revenue.
While the subject may be dirty and controversial, the principle at hand is supposed to be sacred. Free enterprise is a fundamental value for the United States, and it sets a dangerous precedent to tread on that value, no matter the circumstance.
Philosophically speaking, it may be wrong for tobacco companies to produce a product many feel is geared toward children, but is there no responsibility with the parents? If a mother or father cannot monitor a child and prevent them from using cigarette until they are old enough to make their own informed choice, how is that the fault of anyone other than that mother or father?
The numbers in this case aren’t important. The companies can handle the loss. What is important is the intrusion on one of our nation’s cornerstones, and that’s a loss we can’t handle.
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