U.S. soldiers serving deployments across the globe enjoy care packages sent by charitable organizations and grateful communities back home. These care packages soon will be missing a popular item if Congress does not act:  Cigars.

Today, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor – who represents Tampa, Fla., historically dubbed “Cigar City” – filed legislation to restore charitable contributions of premium cigars to U.S. troops.

“Charitable contributions of traditional, premium cigars to members of the U.S. Armed Forces – a time-honored tradition that dates back to WWI – were recently swept up and disallowed in the Food and Drug Administration’s regulation of a broad range of tobacco products that took effect Aug. 8,” U.S. Rep. Castor said. “I strongly disagree with the FDA’s ban on premium cigars as charitable gifts to our troops and as donations to nonprofit organizations that in turn use these donations to support our troops.”

The Restore Charitable Contributions of Premium Cigars to the Troops Act would reinstate this tradition of donating cigars to our military members to provide them a taste of home while deployed. U.S. Rep. Castor also supports the Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act, which would exempt individually-rolled, premium cigars from regulation by FDA because, unlike other tobacco products brought under the jurisdiction of FDA by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, premium cigars are not marketed to children.

“We are the Cigar Capital and cigars are the second-most requested item by our deployed troops,” said Mark Van Trees of Support the Troops, which now only has about a two-month supply to fulfill the 40-pound care packages the organization sends out every day to troops located where they can’t otherwise obtain cigars. “It’s a small way we can show our troops that we’re still thinking about them. It’s a nice release and we receive thank-you letters and pictures.”

Since 9/11, Support the Troops in Wesley Chapel has been sending out cigars as part of its care packages to deployed troops and special forces stationed at some 80 locations throughout the world, according to Van Trees.

Cigars for Warriors has been operating as a nonprofit in Florida since 2012 and partners with more than 400 donation centers, including retailers and manufacturers. “Every month we ship out an average of 25,000 premium cigars and 100 percent of those are requested,” said Storm Boen, chairman of Cigars for Warriors. 

U.S. Rep. Castor has also heard directly from Thompson Cigar Co. in Tampa and J.C. Newman, a premium cigarmaker in Ybor City.

“In absence of a broader exemption of premium cigars, Congress must act to support our troops and the nonprofit organizations that support them,” U.S. Rep. Castor added. “The FDA’s regulation of individually-rolled, premium cigars in general is unreasonable and has led to unintentional, but very real consequences, like halting one of the most popular charitable donations to our troops.”

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