Holy Smokes! ATF Agent Says Biden’s Regulation on Smokes May Have Negative Effect

Everything that Joe Biden touches continues to go to crap! Even the most well-intended policies.

Is this surprising? Considering this is the most impressive assembly of idiots in our lifetimes to sit in power, it should come as no surprise that pretty much every decision is wrong or unintentionally damaging.

A new Biden administration effort to regulate cigarettes will bankroll gangsters and bankrupt farmers, experts say. The plan is a part of the administration’s “harm reduction” strategy that enables illicit drug use and criminalizes tobacco. @FreeBeacon https://t.co/JPtYAtnvGh

— Patrick Hauf (@PatrickHauf) June 20, 2022

Even cigarettes, something on the surface that seems like a slam dunk policy move, could potentially turn into a crap fest.

Let’s look at what I’m talking about. Per the Washington Free Beacon:

A new Biden administration effort to regulate cigarettes will bankroll street gangs and bankrupt U.S. tobacco farmers, experts say.

The Food and Drug Administration is preparing this month to require lower nicotine content in all cigarettes—a move critics argue will wreck the $75 billion U.S. tobacco industry amid a global economic crisis and boost a black market as crime spikes nationwide. The news comes weeks after the agency announced its plans to ban menthol cigarettes, which will cost federal and local governments an estimated $6.6 billion in the first year alone.

So, what we have here is the Biden administration, with all that is going on such as supply chain issues, shortages everywhere, record-high inflation, and out-of-control pump prices, focusing on cigarettes.

On the surface, FEWER smokers would be a good thing. However, what we don’t need are more criminals. Nicotine is an EXTREMELY addictive drug. I’ve never smoked but it’s my understanding that it is very hard to quit because of the nicotine rush.

So, if someone could please explain how a lower nicotine level in the cigarette is going to curb smoking and perhaps improve America’s overall health, I’m listening.

Otherwise, it sounds like a black-market situation, because addicts are going to get their fix. The Biden administration should know this from their experience distributing drug paraphernalia to addicts.

Richard Marianos, a 27-year veteran of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, said these regulations will shift the demand for cigarettes toward unregulated tobacco grown internationally, which is then purchased and sold by drug dealers.

“The problem again with this administration is they do not take into consideration a totality of subject matter experts,” Marianos told the Washington Free Beacon. “I’ve never seen this much foolishness in my life.”

Marianos, who worked on gang violence at the ATF, said the black market for cigarettes is dominated by street gangs and would grow at least a hundredfold after the FDA implements its nicotine decision. He claims one of his former informants discovered some dealers make $5,000 selling cigarettes in a single afternoon. The FDA’s “uneducated and silly” cigarette plan, he said, would require law enforcement to focus on tobacco sales rather than drugs and violent crime.

There you go folks, you have an expert in the field saying one thing, so the Biden administration will push hard in the other direction. Sounds familiar right? The border, inflation, the middle east, energy production, whatever the prevailing wisdom is from the experts, Biden says ‘let’s not do that!’.

The FDA’s cigarette regulations are a part of the Biden administration’s larger “harm reduction” strategy that enables illicit drug use while criminalizing tobacco. The Free Beacon reported in February that the Department of Health and Human Services was set to fund the distribution of crack pipes through a $30 million harm reduction program, which according to the New York Times sparked an “uproar” that “derailed” the agency’s entire drug policy.

“This is not tobacco harm reduction at all,” Marianos told the Free Beacon. “Who do you think the kids are going to be buying from now? The crooks. What are they going to be smoking now? Counterfeit, unregulated products. What do you think they’ll be smoking more than cigarettes now? Marijuana.”

Honestly, I don’t think Joe Biden or his cast of clowns knows exactly what the word “harm” means. They certainly don’t when the word “reduction” is following it.

Considering almost every policy they have put in place has actually harmed our people and our country, this one appears no different.

The only way to start to right the ship is to “smoke” this administration in the midterms and then butt them out in 2024.