This Petition is written as a plea for help in combating and restricting the proliferation of Reconstituted Tobacco Products within our community. For the last 30-years Cigar companies have saturated our communities with Reconstituted Tobacco Products that are lethal and addictive, masquerading them as Cigars. They have bombarded our youth through the Media, such as Radio, Television, as well as popular Social Media platforms. Major Cigar Companies utilize these platforms such as Facebook, You Tube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and many others to advertise their lethal products directly to the youth, as well as the use of third-party celebrity sponsorships. Unlike cigarettes; which are highly regulated with prohibitions such as: Cigarette manufacturers, retailers, and distributors are prohibited from sponsoring or causing to be sponsored any athletic, musical, artistic or other social or cultural event, or any entry or team in any event, in the BRAND NAME!  These Cigar companies are not bound by the same prohibitions and are allowed to promote their product to the youth through musical, and artistic venues.  For example, Swisher International the largest Cigar manufacture in the United States is allowed to host pop up events such as “The Artist Project.”
The Artist Project was one of their many campaigns, which included Hip Hop concerts that targeted the American youth through Hip Hop artists such as, Gucci Mane, Desiigner, Fetty Wap, Cardi B and Machine Gun Kelly.
These concerts where located in major U.S cities, that have large African America demographics, such as Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and New Orleans.
This is an instrumental part of their robust, and strategic media strategy to push their products onto youth via Hip Hop culture, as well as the management and growth of their social presence.  The primary consumer of this lethal product is the Africa American community. The prevalence of cigar use among African Americans is based primary as a result of the practice of Blunt Smoking. Smoking A Blunt is the combination of rolling, and smoking Cannabis; a Schedule 1 Drug, inside of a Reconstituted Tobacco Binder.
This practice was first developed within the Africa American community as a new apparatus for consuming Cannabis, and soon became mainstream via the Hip Hop culture, in the year 1992.  The high consumption of Cigars by the African American community is indisputable and is the irrefutable explanation for the Cigar Boom in the United States of America.  Cigar companies are aware that African American consumers are modifying their product with Cannabis, and Cigar Companies exploit this highly addictive combination, which leads to the use of mainstream Cigar smoking such as Black and Mild’s, Hav A Tampa Jewels, and Swisher BLK, and many other brands.
Cigars contain the same toxic, and carcinogenic compounds found in cigarettes and are not a safe alternative to cigarettes. Cigars can have up to 100 to 200 milligrams of nicotine: while cigarettes average about 8 milligrams. That means smoking one cigar can have as much nicotine as one pack of unfiltered cigarettes.  Cigars are not regulated or taxed in the same manner as Cigarettes, and Smokeless Tobacco, even though Cigars are far more lethal.  According to the CDC regularly smoking Cigars is associated with an increased risk for cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx (voice box), and oral cavity (lip, tongue, mouth, and throat.   Heavy cigar smoking and inhaling cigar smoke deeply may increase the risk for developing coronary heart disease.  Cigar smoking also increases the risk for lung diseases, such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
African Americans; as the largest consumers of Cigars do not receive equal protect under the laws that protect consumers from Cigarettes, which is a direct violation of the 14 Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.  We want to make it clear that the demographics of Cigar smokers have changed from the older European American consumer to that of a lower economical, and ill-informed African American consumer.
The Constitution guarantees the right to equal protections under the laws and bars the government from passing laws or taking official actions that treat “similarly situated” people or groups of people differently.
Cigars companies hide behind outdated laws that define them differently from Cigarettes although they are fundamentally far more dangerous.  African Americans make up 13 percent of the total American population yet purchase and consume to their detriment the majority of the 15 billion Cigars sold in the United States of America.  This disparity is a recipe for disaster and pose the threat of genocide to the African American population the United States of America.  In 1998, 52 state and territory attorneys general signed the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with the four largest tobacco companies in the U.S. to settle dozens of state lawsuits brought to recover a minimum 206 billion in health care costs associated with treating smoking-related illnesses.  This wanton, and malicious onslaught of Reconstituted Tobacco Products on the African American community is causing ill reversable devastation, such as substance abuse, economic loss, chronic illnesses, and death.