[June 11, 2025 — Washington, DC] The Cigar Association of America (CAA) filed a brief with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Friday, June 6, 2025, in accordance with the Circuit Court of Appeals’ direction to address the appropriate definition of “premium cigar.”

The January 24, 2025, opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Mehta’s well-reasoned decision, which found the FDA’s decision to regulate premium cigars unlawful and remanded the case “only so that the district court can invite briefing on the appropriate definition of ‘premium cigars.’”

“The Circuit Court recognized that the definition of a premium cigar was never fully vetted either through FDA rulemaking or through litigation,” said CAA President Scott Pearce. “The Circuit Court’s order provided the industry, finally, with an opportunity to provide science, law, and fact to support a proper definition.”

CAA’s brief highlights the unnecessary risks posed to the entire premium cigar industry because of multiple ambiguities and unjustifiably narrow qualifiers in the definition previously supplied by the FDA, the latter lacking in scientific research and at odds with current marketplace practice.

Collectively, these shortcomings put at risk the protections of Judge Mehta’s ruling.

For the benefit of all manufacturers, retailers, and consumers, CAA’s brief advocates for a modified “premium cigar” definition that preserves the intent of Judge Mehta’s vacatur ruling and eliminates the foregoing problems.

It also can be shown by scientific research to not result in any difference in population health outcomes or youth usage versus the FDA supplied definition previously adopted by Judge Mehta.

The definition proposed by CAA aligns with longstanding marketplace practices, accepted and recognized by the premium cigar industry and by adult consumers. It also supports retailers by rejecting restrictions – imposed by the definition supplied by FDA – that would reduce the size of the premium cigar subcategory, thereby subjecting retailers to additional regulation.

The proposed CAA definition prevents marketplace disruptions due to ambiguity and policy decisions, relying instead on science, law, and fact to properly define the subcategory of premium cigars.

The brief also addresses the challenges in the enforcement and compliance of the current FDA supplied definition, the ambiguities of which allow the FDA a high degree of subjectivity in interpretation and enforcement without any discernible benefit to the public health. 

These modifications ensure that the status of premium cigars is not challenged based on ambiguous or subjective standards.

“CAA fully supports a definition that includes all cigars the marketplace has for decades recognized as premium, and which were the subject of the scientific research Judge Mehta used as the basis for vacatur. Surveys and datasets that track usage patterns of tobacco products have confirmed there is no scientific basis to conclude that youth use ‘premium cigars’, whether they be traditional or hand-rolled flavored cigars. Therefore, excluding those products would be arbitrary and counter to the spirit and intent of the vacatur ruling,” said Pearce.

CAA Chairman Javier Estades said, “The way we cultivate, age, and cure tobacco and roll cigars has not really changed for the last 100 years. The vacatur should protect all these cigars, the ones consumers find in the humidors of thousands of retail stores across the country and purchase every day.”

If you have any questions or comments, please contact Scott Pearce, President, SPearce@CigarsUSA.org.