In keeping with his flurry of final insults and attacks prior to sliding out of office, President Joe Biden is leaving us with a new “regulation” (i.e. mandate, backed, by government threats) that will ban most brands of cigarettes shortly after Donald Trump takes office.
It’s coming from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a division of the ever-lovin’ Department of Health and Human Services, and it has the blasé title, “Tobacco Product Standard for Nicotine Level of Certain Tobacco Products." And, once the obligatory “public comment” period ends, it will prohibit the sale of most cigarettes, forcing new expenses on cigarette makers, raising the prices of the product, and threatening approximately 150,000 jobs in that sector, not to mention the sales of retail convenience stores.
As Christian Datoc writes for The Washington Examiner:
“If adopted, his Food and Drug Administration rule would set a new maximum nicotine level for cigarettes, effectively banning virtually all cigarettes currently available for commercial purchase in the United States.”
It might shock the bureaucrats populating the FDA and raking in billions of our tax dollars a year (last year, Axios called the nearly 7 BILLION they sucked away from us a “tight budget”) to discover that their vast expanse of offices and diktats exist because generations of politicians intentionally have misread the U.S. Constitution’s “Commerce Clause” to claim power over any product that travels over state lines. That’s a generations-long, politically-perpetuated, crime committed against the likes of James Madison, who explained that the clause pertains to state-vs-state tariff/trade disputes.
Notes Datoc:
“Biden's Office of Management and Budget concluded a review of the proposed rule, the text of which has not been published, on Jan. 3. The rule must still enter a public comment period before it can be finalized, but, based on the typical comment period window of 30-90 days, it would fall to President-elect Donald Trump to implement the rule.”
So, breathe easy, Americans. MAGA. MAGA…
Or, maybe such religiosity is uncalled-for - because, it turns out, it was actually Trump’s FDA that initiated this offensive attack on private contract, sales, and purchases.
“Trump transition officials declined to comment on Biden's proposed rule, but the Trump-era FDA first began studying lowering nicotine levels in cigarettes back in 2018.”
And this indicates not only that Trump either did not know what his own FDA was doing, or he did, and he embraces the same ignorance or dismissal of the U.S. Constitution, as formulated and approved by the Founders, it tells us that Trump’s FDA lit the fuse to wipe out nearly 150,000 jobs.
Related: 'Food Policy' Report Calls for Worldwide Fight Against Sugar and Meat - Using Taxes
The principle of freedom is the fundamental point here. Then, there is the US Constitution, as noted above, and then, this final portion of the problem, the negative economic consequences the mandate will impose.
Writes Datoc:
“An analysis published in December by Chmura Economics & Analytics found that the FDA's proposed nicotine limit would yield an annual loss of $24 billion in federal, state, and local taxes.
Furthermore, the rule could lead to more than 150,000 agriculture and retail job cuts across the nation, leading to additional negative ‘ripple effects’ in local economies.
Chmura notes that the District of Columbia and all 50 states also receive yearly payments from tobacco companies as outlined in 1998's Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. Biden's ban would result in additional TMSA losses exceeding $21 billion per year.”
The taxes and the “Master Settlement Agreement” stem from unethical government desires for cash, but the job losses and aggregate loss in sales are terribly important.
“Ray Starling, general counsel for the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, told the Washington Examiner that North Carolina farmers would be financially devastated should the new rule go into effect.
‘What people need to understand is we don't have people that are just tobacco farmers. They are tobacco farmers and also produce and vegetable farmers, or wheat farmers, or they also have hogs and cattle because we're a diversified [agriculture] state,’ he explained. ‘If you take tobacco farming out of the quiver of some of these farmers, it will be what sort of tips them over to the edge of being in the red and not in the black, and I don't think FDA made any effort to try to understand that.’"
Little noticed in DC is the fact that, at any time, the FDA bureaucrats could leave their tax-funded jobs and offer their own brands of low-nicotine cigarettes. Instead, claiming that the addictive qualities of the molecule are “dangerous,” they try to prevent people from making choices, they attack freedom of exchange, and they impose their wills.
But lots of things kick off biological responses in the human body that, when removed or reduced, can inspire physical and mental distress.
And it is not the place of Person A to tell Person B that he cannot ingest or imbibe those things.
It’s immoral and unethical to claim control over another’s personal decisions. To claim “we all pay” for someone else’s choices over his own body is to, at the outset, claim ownership over him. It also supposes that medical and other services are socialist constructs, rather than what they are and ought to be recognized as being: privately provided services, the operation of which the government should not control, and for which no government should be forcing you to pay.
It is this aggression, exerted by bureaucrats and politicians, that collectivizes more and more in our lives. It is this busybody mindset, backed by a mask of affrontery put up against anyone who should dare mention the principles of freedom and free trade, that fuels the ever-widening police-state. It fuels this nicotine ban, it fuels impositions such as expensive labelling mandates forced on food-sellers, it saw then-Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg in 2012 propose a ban on “sweet” sodas over 16 ounces, and it even sees backers of the collectivist British National Health Service push for a “fat tax,” literally charging people for being overweight.
It also has seen attacks on private property and freedom of contract in other areas, such as state or city bans on cigarette smoking in bars and restaurants – places that are privately owned, in which people voluntary work and which people voluntarily frequent, and which competitive markets allow choice to reflect what customers and potential employees prefer.
But government, propelled by the acquisitive desires of the political elite, has absorbed those into the collective, has inappropriately labeled them “public” spaces, despite them being privately run, not using tax money, and their owners and visitors having the God-given right to be left unmolested.
When, in 1996, I lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, I used to hear radio reports about “black market cigarette” smugglers being apprehended by the oh-so-heroic Royal Canadian Mounted Police, indicating to me how wasteful their “police” system was, and how darkly far ahead of the US the Canadian police state was. The Canadian government had imposed such high taxes on smokes, a black market had arisen.
And with this approaching move by the FDA (after the obligatory and useless “public hearing period” ends), the nicotine restrictions likely will lead to a growing demand in smuggled cigs, something that Datoc notes:
“…Richard Marianos, the former assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, blasted Biden's final push to ban cigarettes, suggesting the effective bans will drive users to purchase unregulated products on the black market and prove a financial windfall for criminals at home and abroad.”
Regardless of this possible outcome, the principle of freedom is what really counts. Not only do people have the right to engage in peaceful commerce that does not harm others – like deciding to enter or work in a cigar bar, fully aware it’s a place where people smoke, lifting a cigarette is a personal choice – we all should remember that we have a right to NOT HAVE TO PAY for the FDA.
The very existence of the FDA is not only unconstitutional, it immorally tells us we have to pay for it. How about we enjoy a ban on the FDA?