The international cigar industry has responded with great relief at last week’s news that US President Donald Trump’s new US Food and Drug Administration Director Scott Gottlieb has postponed the implementation of draconian tobacco legislation.

 

As previously reported, this would have required all products launched over the last decade to apply for expensive individual approvals. There were also few companies more pleased at this news than Oettinger Davidoff AG, whose CEO Hans-Kristian Hoejsgaard confirmed that this now buys the industry a full three bonus years to try to repeal this legislation by discussion on its merits – or otherwise.

 

CIGAR INDUSTRY NOW HAS TIME TO LOBBY
He said: “You will remember that the biggest and most expensive piece was that we had to get approval of all products launched over the last ten years retro-actively, but the Trump Administration’s new FDA Director Scott Gottlieb announced four days ago [speaking last week-Ed] that they will now postpone that deadline from February 2018 to August 2021.”

 

Hoejsgaard continued: “So number one that is fantastic good news and number two it is an opportunity to spend three years on this conversation of whether we really need the regulation, so that is really, really good news.We have spent a lot of effort on this since Trump was always talking about his anti-regulatory agenda and we obviously had some hope, but now he has also delivered. So that is encouraging and while the world may not all be too keen on Trump, as a specific industry we are very happy.”

 

THE US FDA NOW HAS JURISDICTION OVER ALL TOBACCO PRODUCTS

Significantly, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently finalisd a rule that extends its regulatory authority to all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, cigars, and hookah and pipe tobacco  as part of its goal to improve public health. It is also advocating a new nicotine reduction plan to try and reduce cigarette addiction in the United States as reported in TRBusiness recently [https://www.trbusiness.com/regional-news/the-americas/us-fda-announces-new-plan-to-reduce-smoking/124282]

 

Dr. Scott was sworn in as the 23rd Commissioner of Food and Drugs on May 11, 2017. He is a physician, medical policy expert and public health advocate who previously served as the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs and before that, as a senior advisor to the FDA Commissioner.

 

He also worked on implementation of the Medicare drug benefit as a senior advisor to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where he supported policy work on quality improvement and the agency’s coverage process – particularly as it related to new medical technologies.