Bryan Haynes and Nancyellen Keane of the Troutman Sanders tobacco team will be attending the Tobacco Plus Convenience Expo in Las Vegas on January 28-29, 2015.  We look forward to seeing our clients and friends at the show.  Please come visit with us at the Smokeshop Magazine booth.

For questions…

On December 19, Representative Henry Waxman, Senator Dick Durbin, and Representative Frank Pallone, Jr. sent letters to the twenty-nine State Attorneys General who were signatories of the August 8, 2014 letter to the FDA regarding regulation of e-cigarettes.  The December 19th letters lauded the continuing efforts of the State Attorneys General to encourage the regulation of e-cigarettes and called on them to classify e-cigarettes as “cigarettes” under the Master Settlement Agreement (“MSA”). Such classification would, among other things, impose cigarette advertising restrictions on vapor products.

On December 16, the FDA issued warning letters to six online retailers for selling “across state lines a tobacco product subject to a Not Substantially Equivalent (NSE) Order.”  Once an NSE order has been issued for a particular tobacco product by the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, the products are considered “misbranded and adulterated” and therefore cannot be sold, marketed, or distributed. 

An article by the Troutman Sanders Tobacco practice appears in the October issue of Smokeshop Magazine. The article, titled “Premium Cigars Face Regulations Strangulation under FDA”, discusses the anticipated impact of FDA’s pre-market review requirements on the premium cigar market.

An article by the Troutman Sanders Tobacco practice appears in the December issue of Smokeshop Magazine. The article, titled “Hey Legislators: Vaping Products Don’t Belong in the MSA!” discusses the “longshot” bid by congressmen to have e-cigarettes included in the Master Settlement Agreement (“MSA”).

On November 24, the Speaker of the House John Boehner, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Fred Upton, the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote to the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services challenging the proposed “grandfather” date for premarket review of the newly “deemed” tobacco products.  According to the proposed regulation, the grandfather date for purposes of premarket review of e-cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco would remain at February 15, 2007 – which is the date for other currently regulated tobacco products such as cigarettes, smokeless, and roll-your-own tobacco. These products have been regulated since the Tobacco Control Act was enacted in 2009.