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IPCPR Holds Seminar on HR 1639

 

Evening Seminar Mixes Education of Retail Industry and Potential of Future Onerous FDA Regulations



June 10, 2011 -Members of the Board of Director's Legislative Committee of the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association never pass up an opportunity to preach the benefits of HR 1639, especially to cigar-loving opinion leaders in Washington, D.C.

 

Top Level Seminar for Washington Opinion Leaders

One such opportunity arose this week at CXIIIRex, the private cigar club in Old Town Alexandria, VA and, sure enough, the IPCPR leaders and other key Association members there took center stage and delivered a seminar on HR1639 to the crowd of some 40 top level Washington influencers about the Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act of 2011.

 

Otherwise known as HR1639, the bill is designed to save the premium cigar industry from falling into the clutches of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as part of the so-called Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act which was passed in 2009 and is primarily designed to allow the FDA to control the manufacture and sale of cigarettes. The HR1639 proposed legislation is designed to clarify the muddied tobacco situation and, literally, by definition, separates premium cigars from cigarettes and other tobacco products in order to remove it from the jurisdiction of the FDA.

 

Measure Clarifies Tobacco Control Act

The IPCPR helped create HR1639 earlier this year and has been actively campaigning to recruit as many co-sponsors as possible for it among members of Congress in order to move it to a favorable vote as soon as possible.  The measure does not repudiate the 2009 Tobacco Control Act or those members of Congress who voted for the bill.  It simply clarifies the scope of FDA's authority which enables even co-sponsors of that bill to become co-sponsors of HR1639. 

 

The Association is pulling out all the stops now to promote HR1639 and get as many members of Congress as possible to co-sponsor it.  At this writing, some 20 members have co-sponsored HR1639 but we need more.

 

Ways You Can Help

That's where you come in.

As a retail tobacconist and member of the IPCPR, you can help HR1639 on its road to passage by taking advantage of every opportunity to promote HR1639 to your staff, customers, family, neighbors and especially by talking up its benefits to your member of Congress.  An HR1639 Tool Kit is on its way to you. It includes a letter you can get your customers to sign and a point-of-sale counter card that draws the attention of everyone in your store and creates a focus for conversation about HR1639 throughout your business day.

 

To contact your member of Congress, simply go to IPCPR.org, follow the basic instructions and, within a few clicks, you've done the best thing you could do today to help your business: you have contacted your member of Congress seeking his or her support for and co-sponsorship of HR1639.

IPCPR Spokesman Chris McCalla