Swisher Issues Statement in Response to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Proposal of a Tobacco Product Standard to Ban Characterizing Flavors in Cigars

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Swisher issued the following statement in response to FDA’s announcements:

The Food and Drug Administration is moving forward with a proposed product standard regarding characterizing flavors in cigars despite a near-vacuum of scientific evidence to support this decision. FDA’s announcement today is only a proposed rule and must go through a lengthy comment and approval process before it can be enacted. Given this, Swisher will continue business as usual. Our entire portfolio remains available for us to market and sell to our adult consumers.

The evidence that does exist shows moderate consumption by a small cohort of adults and historically low youth usage. Based on the government’s own studies, youth usage of cigars has been declining for years and is at an all-time low. Furthermore, insufficient time has passed to determine whether raising the minimum age of purchase to 21, which was promoted as a tool to further impact and mitigate youth usage of all tobacco products, will effectively reduce these already low numbers.

The overall public health community has increasingly supported a posture of allowing citizens to make their own informed health decisions. This FDA action, however, does the opposite. It restricts consumer choice and removes adult products from the market without scientific basis for doing so. FDA should suspend action on a flavor standard for cigars until further study is done on the manner of use of various types of cigars and its implications. Adult cigar consumers should be empowered to weigh the evidence and risk as that information emerges and make fully educated choices.

For more than a decade, Swisher has been a responsible corporate partner with FDA and has sought to work with the agency to understand and meet its obligations. Swisher plans to vehemently oppose this measure with meaningful scientific and economic data, and encourages adult consumers, employees, retailers, and other stakeholders to make their views known to FDA and other policymakers.

About Swisher:

Swisher is an international leading lifestyle company for adult consumers. Best known for their Swisher Sweets Cigars, the company is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida. Swisher also has a global manufacturing presence in Santiago, Dominican Republic; Esteli, Nicaragua and Wheeling, West Virginia. Swisher’s superior customer relationships matched with an unwavering commitment to innovative thinking and action have driven the company to grow and adapt to the evolving preferences of adult consumers for over 160 years. Visit https://swisher.com/about/ to learn more.