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Are little cigars just cheap cigarettes WASHINGTON -- If it looks like a cigarette, feels like a cigarette and smokes like a cigarette -- it must be a cigarette. At least that's what 40 state attorneys general are saying about ''little cigars.'' The cigars should be reclassified as cigarettes, the officials said Thursday, meaning they would be subject to higher taxes, would have to carry health-warning labels and would be subject to marketing restrictions imposed on cigarettes but not on cigars. Sales of little cigars have increased even as cuban cigars sales have dropped, the attorneys general said. The little cigars often are specially flavored to appeal to young people, the officials said. They said they had petitioned the federal government to issue new rules clarifying cheap cigars online how cigars and cigarettes should be categorized. That's necessary, they said, because many so-called ''little cigars'' are actually cigarettes. They just have brown outer wrappings. ''The new rules are intended to level the playing field so that cigarettelike products are taxed as cigarettes,'' the attorneys general wrote in their petition to the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and buy cuban cigars Trade Bureau. ''The states believe that cigarette smokers have switched to the cheaper cigarettes intentionally misclassified and mislabeled by unscrupulous manufacturers as ''little cigars'' in order to continue to smoke cigarettes, at a cheaper price,'' the attorneys general wrote.
Cigar aficionados light up their lives. In an era where cigarette smoking is in decline for its health effects and faces increasing social censure, there has been quiet growth in the popularity of the cigar. The theory goes that cigars are about more than just smoking. Sure, aficionados will praise the complex taste of the world's best cigars, which are made around the Caribbean. But it's also about how and where you smoke discount cuban cigars them. "For me, a cigar is not an everyday thing, it's something I spoil myself with," says Spiro Ellul, a Melbourne collector and cigar smoker. "I spend up to two hours smoking one, with a nice glass of red or a port and I'll drift off and reflect on my daily life and organise my thoughts." Ellul spent about $15,000 last year collecting cigars. He has about 50 boxes in storage. True aficionados leave cigars to age for at least a year in a controlled humidity of between 65 and 75 per cent. Ellul, like many, is a devotee of Cuban cigars. One of his favourites is the 2004 limited edition Cohiba Sublime, which, he says, have a robust flavour, with "notes of cocoa and leather". These cost about $1300 online cigars store for a box of 25. Norman Stein, the owner of Sydney cigar retailer Bogarts, says cigar smoking is increasing in popularity and that the average age of buyers is getting lower. "It used to be considered something just for wealthy executives, but now people are equating it with a relaxed lifestyle, whether it be something they associate with a game of golf, or cards, or sitting back and celebrating or contemplating a promotion or the birth of a child," he says. Danny Maroudas, the store manager of Melbourne's Alexanders Cigar Merchants, says the cohiba cigars montecristo most sought-after Cuban brands are Cohiba, Romeo y Julieta ciras, Partagas cigars and Hoyo De Monterrey cigars. Among Dominican cigars, Davidoff, Dunhill, Cuesta Rey and Arturo Fuente are popular, as is the Nicaraguan brand Padron. Maroudas says because cigars need to be matured and can be kept for years, they make good collectibles. He says cigars made by expatriate Cubans - especially Dunhill and Davidoff - before they left Cuba are highly collectible, fetching up to $500 a stick. A whole box in mint condition can be worth up to $10,000.
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