I've been thinking about this and responding to the FDA's proposed case. There is still time to reply. If it is not a response to the document then what would be useful and is missing so far? I'm skeptical about simply objecting, as the P&C page indicates. Why would that matter when they've been given the right and the duty to regulate tobacco by law? The FDA is presuming a threat in the growth that may not be a threat at all. And I think the growth, or recovery in the market, is the only difference from 1995-96 when they last looked at this. It's the connection with youth smoking.
Tell them what your pipe smoking is for you. Is it important? Where does it fit in your life? Tell them your age. This is important because you may not be 18 -24 yo. Tell them when you started and tell them how often you smoke. Why did you take up pipe smoking? Were you a cigarette smoker or are you new to smoking? Do you see your pipe smoking as harmful to you or anybody else? Where do you smoke? What stops or impedes you from smoking more? Some of Dan's comments capture this really well. Pipe smoking is an awkward fit for this world. This is important stuff that only you know. And this information, in the aggregate, is really behind some of the FDA's suspicions about pipe smoking. They may be misunderstanding. Their idea about who you are and why you smoke pipes may be completely mistaken. And only you know your facts and reasons. This isn't just objecting; this is telling them why you object.
DAN wrote:.... I get sick of this. The more I learn about tobacco and disease, the more I'm convinced that while smoking those FOULIN' cigarettes can't POSSIBLY be good for you, at least if inhaled, moderate cigar and/or pipe smoking has a chance of hurting you so low that in most people, it simply isn't worth worrying about.
And who has the opportunity to smoke immoderately these days? How? in my case, I cannot smoke in the house (asthmatic wife); I cannot smoke at work; I cannot smoke in my work vehicle; God knows I cannot smoke whilst shopping at Wal-Mart.
I mean, really: where the shale am I supposed to find the time to smoke enough to do myself some harm? I have a hard time getting through more than a bowl and a half (if that) every day. ...
We have young members here but it's certainly not solely young people that have taken up the pipe. There are folks of all ages that have started pipe smoking. The growth doesn't appear to be solely driven by youth smoking. It appears to be a hobby interest for those we see online.
It appears that many new pipe smokers are not responding to cigarette tobacco controls in taking up the pipe. This needs to be said.
And many are hobbyists, just like the premium cigar hobby smokers, who find it hard to integrate pipe smoking into their life and therefore smoke very little.
This 482% growth number over 2000-2011, making pipe smoking the fastest growing smoking alternative to cigs, bothers me. How are they measuring that? They cite CDC statistics. It's likely tobacco sold. And they are associating the growth with new young smokers. I think they're missing context at least.
Pipe smoking was still declining through the middle of that period at least. And it looks like the incidence bottomed out to something on order of 0.5% of the adult population. That accounted quite well for the amount of tobacco sold up to 2007. It did the same thing in other countries too. If the incidence of pipe smokers indeed grew by 482% then it's gone from 0.5% of the adult pop. to approx. 2.91%. I'm skeptical. But is it really a public threat at 2.91% ? Incidentally, that might put the market demand back to where it was in the early to mid 1990's when they last gave it a pass.
I don't know if the CDC's numbers actually represent pipe tobacco volumes sold and are not contaminated with the relabeling of RYO as pipe tobacco. There are lots of reasons to be suspicious about their alarm concerning the growth rate.