Smoking bans across America

Our community is more important today than ever. We have documented the onslaught of smoking bans across America and the world, and the crusade to make it ever more difficult to enjoy any kind of tobacco product. Our best hope in the face of these attacks is to band together and explain to the politicians and legislators who are crafting these smoking bans that cigar smokers are different. As our surveys have shown, most of you smoke less than one cigar a day, and the overwhelming majority of you do not inhale. You usually smoke with friends, taking time out from a busy day, or carving out time on a weekend, to kick back and relax. That’s what the world should see and hear from us—this is a lifestyle choice, not an addiction. Cigars enhance our lives.

The challenge is not getting any easier. Like any campaign with a hard-nosed bias, the crusaders believe any means justifies their end. That means distorting scientific results and vilifying anything, or anyone, trying to argue against their point of view. Make no mistake. The target isn’t just cigarettes, or cigars, or chewing tobacco. It is the prohibition of the use of all tobacco products. Cigars are not being excluded from the crusade.

The cigar community is the best defense we have against the anti-tobacco tide. Seek out your fellow cigar smokers. Go to the Cigar Rights of America website, cigarrights.org, and join the most effective organization out there that is fighting to preserve your freedom to smoke. Use Cigar Aficionado’s social media page on Facebook to find like-minded smokers, or visit our forums atcigaraficionado.com. Encourage every cigar lover you know to protest every attempt to make cigar-smoking impossible. Now is the time.