Pipe Smokers Intelligencer

My many apologies for taking a hiatus from PSI blog duties. First, there was a hectic vacation with family; then other writing responsibilities and exhaustion as a result of my 8-year-old twin grandsons in for a week. I was frazzled. You can’t catch ‘em and you can’t keep up with ‘em.

But, I am back, recovered from the family wars, I think.

In my absence, we have had some interesting changes. I am posting a WSJ graphic from Dr. Dan Locklair, Composer-in-Residence and Professor of Music at Wake Forest University.

The pdf is Dr. Locklair’s thoughts he expressed in a letter to the editor he wrote to the Wall Street Journal back in June. The good professor is a longtime pipesmoker and observer of the pipe scene. He is also good friends with Craig Tarler, master of the universe, tobacco manufacturer on Mount Zeus, and a special friend.

The Locklair letter deals with the outrageous artwork requirement the Food and Drug Administration has slapped upon cigarette manufacturers. You’ve no doubt seen some of that horrible graphic material. It is not only highly offensive and absurd, but represents a cave-in of the FDA to the anti-smoking zealots.

And with that in mind, it is newsworthy to note that The U.S. 6^th Circuit Court of Appeals is considering the question of just how far the FDA can go in placing those graphic warnings on cigarette labels. It is also looking into how far the FDA can extend its reach in regulating how tobacco companies advertise and market their products.

It is about time a court somewhere took up the issue of what the FDA is doing under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

And here is a novel idea in the appeals story: Noel Francisco, attorney for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., explained to athe three-judge federal panel that the FSPTCA actually forbids cigarette manufacturers from making statements that are “true and those that are not misleading.”

Check out the Associated Press story on this important court action.

Although there is little hope the Appeals Court will rule in favor of the cigarette makers, there is some slim chance, which is better than none.

In 2010 a U.S. District Judge in Bowling Green, Ky., upheld most of the FDA’s marketing restrictions.

Uh, you’d think that with the economy in the tank, unemployment at 9.2 percent, Congress fiddling while the debt ceiling burns as the nation nears default on its debts and devaluation of its credit worthiness, somebody might figure out higher cigarette taxes and lost revenues and jobs in the tobacco business is not good for the nation just now.

But, go figure. I’ve given up, and holler calf rope.