In the recent election, Missouri voters narrowly defeated (by a margin of 50.8% to 49.2%) a ballot initiative that would have raised state excise taxes on all tobacco products, would have regulated cigarette rolling machines and would have increased the amount of money that nonparticipating manufacturers are required to place into escrow accounts.

Several tobacco product manufacturers and a retailer recently requested that the United States Supreme Court consider their challenge to FDA’s requirement for graphic warning labels on cigarette packages.  The tobacco companies are requesting that the Supreme Court reverse the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision finding that the warning label requirement does not violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Cigar manufacturer Prime Time International has responded to U.S. Representative Henry Waxman’s request that FDA immediately regulate cigars and other tobacco products.  (We previously reported on Representative Waxman’s August 27, 2012 request here.)  Prime Time International’s response, a copy of which can be found here, makes a compelling case for delaying FDA regulation of cigars pending further study. 

Earlier this year, Altria Group Inc. (the parent company of cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris USA) announced that it had purchased for $10 million the naming rights for Richmond’s Landmark Theater.  Some industry observers wondered how this was possible, when regulations promulgated by the Food & Drug Administration pursuant to the Tobacco Control Act generally prohibit cigarette and smokeless tobacco manufacturers from sponsoring athletic, musical, artistic, or other social or cultural events. 

We previously reported that in February 2011, Philip Morris filed a federal lawsuit challenging the United States Department of Agriculture’s (“USDA”) calculation of tobacco buyout assessments under the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act of 2004 (“FETRA”) for fiscal years 2011-2014.  The lawsuit challenged a USDA regulation providing that buyout assessments for large cigars for fiscal years 2011-2014 would be calculated using the federal excise tax rate (“FET”) in effect in fiscal year 2005, rather than the new increased FET rates that took effect under the Children’s Heath Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (“CHIPRA”) in April 2009.

Star Scientific and R. J. Reynolds have settled their long-running litigation over Star’s patents covering a curing process that prevents the formation of some cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco. The settlement leaves in place a federal appeals court decision that Star’s patents are not invalid and so removes a potential cloud over the validity of the patents. Star thus can now seek to enforce the patent against other tobacco manufacturers whom it believes are using its patented curing process.

The New Jersey legislature recently introduced a bill that would ban “characterizing flavors” (except tobacco, clove or menthol) in cigars.  (The law’s ban on characterizing flavors in tobacco products currently extends only to cigarettes, thereby mimicking the federal ban.)