Please give us out rights back! Let us parents be responsible for what our kids do, not the government. It's not your place to dictate how or what kids do. Do you really think kids are going to spend twice as much to get a pack of cloves or spend half that amount and get cheep cigarettes. Kids get what ever they can get there hands on and people should be able to make there own decisions on whether they want to smoke or not we all know what it does to us we just choose to anyway. Stay out of our personal rights please.
im very dissapointed with the ruling to ban clove cigarettes. think about it, they sell K12 in any convience store. mariguana is legal in some states. they even sell flavord cigars! what sense does it make to ban clove cigarettes? I am way past the age of 21 and I cannot enjoy my favorite cigarettes. Please bring back my clove cigarettes . thank you
As a former young smoker I can say that the idea clove cigarettes are designed to or in any way promote, encourage, or serve as a gateway for kids to start smoking is completely false. The problem is with the enforcemnet of the laws that are suppose to protect children from cigarettes of all kind. A nation wide ban on clove cigarettes for allegedly promoting children to smoke by covering up the intense sensation caused by smoking makes no more sense than banning all Toyotas because the seats in the car can be raised high enough for kids to see over the steering wheel and still operate the pedals. The ban on clove cigarettes is nothing mor than a blatant attempt by domestic tobacco manufacturers to eliminate foreign competition, and I must say I am highly upset that congress has allowed itself to be so easily and completely swayed by special interest groups. As a person who grew up in a disadvantaged area of the country I can personally attest that clove cigarettes is more than the absolue least problem facing our country's youth today it isnt even on the radar.
Repeal this ban. It's unconstitutional. Not unlike Prohibition. I started smoking Cloves for the flavor but never "transitioned" to normal cigarettes, they taste gross. If this ban was intended to disuade kids from smoking I contend they will start with the cheapest thing they can get their hands on. Cloves and other "flavored" cigarettes are not it.
Congress please stop telling me, a full grown adult, what I can and can not smoke because some study tried to paint it as saving our youth. Guess what... kids are still smoking. Kids are still drinking. Kids are still doing drugs. Please let me smoke what I want with the freedom our great Country was founded upon.
The land of the free and Congress is steadily taking things away. ANd yeah kids will always smoke because it's something they are not allowed to do smoke, and the best things in life are things in life are things we can not have. That is why kids smoke. And most kids smoke whatever their parents are smoking.
Children will always smoke as long as there are cigarettes. Allow adult American's to decide for themselves what they should and shouldn't smoke. There are plenty of laws on the books banning underage smoking, enforce those instead of penalizing everyone.
The notion that clove cigarettes are intended to entice young non-smokers into the habit, frankly, isn't supported by the facts. Compared with menthols, smoked by about 43% of young smokers, clove cigarettes (*excuse me* "cigars") account for less than 1% cigarettes sold, including by young smokers. This ban is nothing more than phillip morris's way of keeping competing products off the market
If in fact, this ban was designed to protect children then why are adults being considered criminals for smoking them? Many states are passing their own laws that make it illegal for even adults to possess clove cigarettes. If children’s lives were truly the issue, the sale of cigarettes in convenient stores could have been banned, or all cigarettes could have been banned. Not just one particular type of cigarette.
Instead, I propose this to protect kids; adults should have to be a registered tobacco user over 18 years of age, identifiable through our S.S. number. Tobacco of any kind would have to be purchased with user verification exclusively in certified Tobacco shops. If kids are found with cigarettes they should go to juvenile hall, and the adult −who contributed to the delinquency of a minor−can be traced by the bar code that is already on every pack.
What has the FDA done to eliminate toxic additives found in many cigarettes still available to children? The answer, they mandated the addition of an extinguishing chemical to the list of over 4,000 preexisting chemicals and radioactive materials found in cigarettes that were not mentioned in the ban. Instead, they discriminately focused on cloves and other natural ingredients found in the only cigarettes that I and many other adults can tolerate and enjoy smoking.
For decades Big Tobacco has been permitted to deliver deadly addictive chemical additives in tobacco products, and they still haven’t been forced to comply with a “natural ingredients only” law or faced being shutdown. Perhaps smokers in the USA should unite to form a committee to give “We the Smokers” a word in what goes into our cigarettes.
Clove cigarettes sales have the potential to generate a good deal of taxes in the U.S., which could be used to lower our national deficit. Currently the ban is adding to our national deficit by criminalizing American adults who are simply enjoying a more natural, satisfying cigarette.
I strongly feel that repealing this unjust ban and related statutes is an essential first step toward truly protecting our children, and preserving the rights and liberties that define our great nation!
I am 42 years of age. And, I only smoke clove cigarettes. It upsets me to no end that the American Government has the nerve to tell me I cannot smoke my brand because of children are drawn to the "Flavor". Be real. Children pinch and smoke plain regular cigarettes. Not Djarum Clove Cigarettes. Only about 0.3% of the smoking population even smoke Cloves, so how on earth are they "drawing in children". This was done so that Big American Cig companies could do away with competition. Shame. Repeal this act. Give me my right to choose.
If you must have a ban on flavored cigarettes, why not put a new age limit on them; make them the same regulation as alcohol. This way, you won't have to worry about little johnny being influenced with flavored smokes, and responsible adults can have what they want.
This law is a gross violation of every American's civil rights, smoker or non-smoker! We need to fight back now or the consequences we have to pay just might break us as a nation. This country was founded on the basis of personal freedom. Laws made to take away that basic freedom, the freedom to choose for ourselves, have to be stopped cold. Otherwise, what was the point?
Not only menthol being the exception but if you read the FDA list of banned flavors...licorice is on that list. What does ALL domestic tobacco companies use to mellow the harsh taste of tobacco? LICORICE!!!! Google the PM tobacco ingredients and you'll see for yourself that they are getting away with breaking the new law they helped pen. I'm sure the FDA is well aware of this but it's easy to say screw the kids and look the other way when that bonus from big tobacco pays for their ivy league childs' tuition.....At the cost of our freedom and rights. They are so concerned with the health of smokers that they now allow big tobacco to use a chemical to make the cigarette go out if not puffed on for a few moments. The chemical was never tested on humans so there's another additive to speed up the cause of lung cancer and prevent those who become sick from getting health care. So there yo have it...Ban flavors for profit ( not the kids) and allow more chemicals in domestic brands so you can be denied health care. The govt. has set this up as a win lose situation...they win with tobacco profit and health care costs.... You lose your rights,freedom, health care, and money you gave them for false security. What this country needs is REAL reform. Not the hot air all those fat poloticians vomit but something on the lines of when this country kicked the blueblood's butts all the way back to England. Give me back my rights and quit using MY constitution to line your litter boxes!
Someone needs to organize an initiative to repeal this, the bill is self defeating claiming to remove flavored tobaccos, while leaving menthol, the #1 kid cigarette in place because its not an import. No no no... See I smell a snake in the grass here, with a stick of menthol still hanging out of its mouth. The come for one of us they come for all of us, smokers unite. If they had banned any other type of cigarettes instead, I would still protest for them, because you know they will come for you too. Its upsetting how far gone this country has become. If this had been Bush that signed this in that would have been one thing, but Obama, a smoke, plastering stickers of hope all over our cities, of who I believed for a split second could actually help this country. I get that you're a liar, you're a politician, but to take my cigarettes away? You guys are assholes.
Guys, this really sucks, but I don't think we are ever going to get anywhere with this because CLOVE SMOKERS ONLY MAKE UP ABOUT 1% OF THE SMOKING POPULATION. What does this say when legally aged citizens can't buy a product that is well within our rights (or was) to have, but can easily find a bag of weed anywhere. GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT, OBAMA.
Congress, you make me sick. The real reason that there is a "ban" on traditional cloves is b/c I believe Phillipe Morris bought a large magority of Kretek Internationals stock and then squeezed you guys for jobs. Plus the 2009, 2000%+ increase in tax, which now goes for an "expanded" health care program, is just one of the many ways the Democratic Party is funding, through unfair and pinpointed TARGETING of a specific sector of society. It is not racial targeting like the 60's but much worse. I call it illegal taxation, a demonstration of non-ethical behavior which makes you look good to "most" of the world. Trust me, if you tried to do this to the presecription drug companies, they or the American people would give you Political Suicide, if not worse. Shame Shame Shame
Both of my parents fought in WWII and two of my brothers fought in Vietnam to preserve freedom. We are slowly losing our freedoms. Please work to reverse this decision.
I work for the federal government. I pay taxes. I should be free to smoke a clove cigarette. We have laws in place to keep minors from purchasing cigarettes. There are substances much more harmful available for purchase. I do not feel that the option to purchase a clove cigarette should be taken away from me. Now, I should move on to cigars and that will be a better option?
This is America. We're supposed to have the freedom to make our own choices. As well, kids do not start by smoking flavored cigarettes such as cloves! They start with the cheapest thing they can buy - usually Newports. Education is the way to prevent the younger generation smoking, not dictating what those who are already adults can smoke if they so choose to.
What the hell has our government turned into? If kids are going to smoke it doesn't mean they won't smoke a regular menthol cigarette. Why are we allowing the government to ban things that they have no right in banning? I'm deeply confused and frustrated by this.
The banning of flavored cigarettes is an act of placing unnecessary restraints on private industry, an affront to the ideals that made america great. Further, the founding fathers would argue this is a violation of the pursuit of happiness.
The theory that flavored cigarettes will entice teenage smoking is doesn’t make sense. I doubt teenagers are going to pay $7+ for a pack. And, if we’re going t go there, what about wine coolers, Boone’s Farm type alcoholic beverages? Isn’t that the same theory?
I never, once fathomed my rights, choices, options being taken away when I voted for Obama….
It's a known fact that youngsters start on menthols more than anything else--this ban is nonsense perpetrated by Big Tobacco, because they don't make money from cloves.
Prohibition in any form infringes on the very foundation of our country’s founding principles. The ban on flavored cigarettes will be as futile as the combined efforts of the Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead Act to try to prohibit alcohol. Learn from history and human nature. Trying to enact laws to stop someone from doing something they want doesn’t work. If the goal is to prevent underage smoking, enforce age verification laws rather than creating yet another situation for Americans to be criminalized for smoking the type of cigarette they enjoy. My god, it’s not crack.
I am an 29 yr old American citizen who should be able smoke my Favorite brand of cigarette(Djarum Blacks), the same way as our President Mr. Obama does with his menthol's. This act of protectionism is just a small glimpse of our future as Americans. Where has our freedom gone?
I should be allowed the freedom to choose what cigarette I smoke. Marlboro and menthols are the number one cigarette smoked by kids. what's next them or no banning cigarettes all together. Didn't the gov try that with alcohol. Did it work. Clove cigarettes should not be banned. This is an encroachment on my freedom to choose.
This is obviously a ploy by tobacco lobbyists (they have been attempting to pass this ban since the 1980's) to reduce competition. What they fail to realize is that clove smokers are not going to start smoking their brands just because they ban them, we are just going to start rolling our own and buy cloves from the grocery store. Ridiculous legislation without any real ethical foundation.
Ban on clove cigarettes
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Some recent comments: these messages are published with permission of the signer.
Congress please stop telling me, a full grown adult, what I can and can not smoke because some study tried to paint it as saving our youth. Guess what... kids are still smoking. Kids are still drinking. Kids are still doing drugs. Please let me smoke what I want with the freedom our great Country was founded upon.
Instead, I propose this to protect kids; adults should have to be a registered tobacco user over 18 years of age, identifiable through our S.S. number. Tobacco of any kind would have to be purchased with user verification exclusively in certified Tobacco shops. If kids are found with cigarettes they should go to juvenile hall, and the adult −who contributed to the delinquency of a minor−can be traced by the bar code that is already on every pack.
What has the FDA done to eliminate toxic additives found in many cigarettes still available to children? The answer, they mandated the addition of an extinguishing chemical to the list of over 4,000 preexisting chemicals and radioactive materials found in cigarettes that were not mentioned in the ban. Instead, they discriminately focused on cloves and other natural ingredients found in the only cigarettes that I and many other adults can tolerate and enjoy smoking.
For decades Big Tobacco has been permitted to deliver deadly addictive chemical additives in tobacco products, and they still haven’t been forced to comply with a “natural ingredients only” law or faced being shutdown. Perhaps smokers in the USA should unite to form a committee to give “We the Smokers” a word in what goes into our cigarettes.
Clove cigarettes sales have the potential to generate a good deal of taxes in the U.S., which could be used to lower our national deficit. Currently the ban is adding to our national deficit by criminalizing American adults who are simply enjoying a more natural, satisfying cigarette.
I strongly feel that repealing this unjust ban and related statutes is an essential first step toward truly protecting our children, and preserving the rights and liberties that define our great nation!
We ask that the ban on flavored tobacco be repealed and our freedom restored.
way to rally against our rights, corner us and eliminate their competition.
I never, once fathomed my rights, choices, options being taken away when I voted for Obama….
Sign the Petition