Why is the government always trying to regulate, “fix” and limit the free market? Not only is cold beer on the chopping block, but the “little cigar” could also find itself on the nanny-state no-no purge list administered by our very own Stali…er, Uncle Sam. From WaPo:
Forty states have asked the U.S. Treasury Department to bar tobacco companies from marketing products they say are identical to cigarettes as “little cigars,” a designation the states say lets the firms evade taxes and target younger consumers. … The “little cigar” label allows the companies to pay lower federal and state taxes, and to avoid payments and advertising restrictions required for cigarettes under the 1998 master agreement between tobacco companies and all 50 states, according to the petition for rule changes. … Norman F. Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America, said the attorneys general are confused on many facts. “Little cigars are not cigarettes and, over the long term, they have never been substitutable for cigarettes,” he told New Jersey legislators at a hearing this month. “They represent the cigar industry’s attempt to give satisfaction to cigar smokers, not an attempt to attract cigarette smokers.”
Imagine that! An industry trying to do right by its customers. Inconceivable! But to get back to the original question; why does the government regulate? Because we let it(and sometimes even beg it to! Alas, the folly of regulatory leverage …)