Cigar Association of America et al. v. United States Food and Drug Administration et al.

The plaintiffs cited FDA’s March announcement about potential rules for cigar factories as well as recent court decisions as reasons why the deeming regulations should be vacated for “premium cigars.”

Two days late and a dollar short, it’s time to think about some big storylines for the cigar industry in 2023.

Yesterday, the cigar industry and the Department of Justice submitted briefs regarding the outcome of a July 2022 ruling by a federal court in Washington, D.C. If the cigar industry is successful, “premium cigars” might be deregulated.

So you want to know what happens next. Here are “nine” “thoughts” on the matter.

The premium cigar industry’s nearly six-year lawsuit against the U.S. Food & Drug Administration received its biggest win to date. The stage is set for premium cigars to be exempt from FDA regulation.

Three cigar trade groups and the FDA walk into a Washington D.C. federal court room and the judge says… Seriously, there was a surprising number of jokes made during one of the most important hearings about the future of cigar regulation to date.

At the last minute, today’s scheduled oral arguments were delayed.

Attorneys for the cigar industry and FDA will be back in court in early May to argue about whether or not the agency properly followed rules when choosing to regulate all cigars the same way. If the cigar industry is victorious, the ramifications could be as large as throwing out the FDA regulations for “premium cigars.”

You didn’t want to read that 526-page FDA-commissioned report about premium cigars? Would you like to read 4,349 words of what I think about it?

The much-anticipated NASEM report on premium cigars is out.

While FDA is not bound to adhere to the report’s findings, it does provide some insight as to what the future of premium cigar regulation might look like in the U.S.

There have been a plethora of filings in the lawsuit filed by Swisher against the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this month, including…