The Washington Post reported on May 18, 2006, that 40 states are looking to limit the 'little cigar' marketing effort. States lobbying the Trade Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax bureau to make this change include Maryland and Iowa.
States are claiming that they are nothing more than cigarettes in a brown wrapper and are an attempt to not only evade taxes but also to attract younger smokers with their lower cost and propensity to be flavored.
The feds say the agency intends to rewrite the rules to draw a "bright line" between cigarettes and little cigars but his is not coming anytime soon. Cigar industry groups are also looking for clarification so that they not get smeared by the "tar" of association with those attempting to bypass cigarette laws and taxes.
Norman F. Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America, is quoted as saying "Little cigars are not cigarettes and, over the long term, they have never been substitutable for cigarettes," he told New Jersey legislators at a hearing this month. "They represent the cigar industry's attempt to give satisfaction to cigar smokers, not an attempt to attract cigarette smokers."