Clove-smoking hipsters may have to find another way to look sexily uninterested without the crutch of their Djarum Blacks. New tobacco legislation that gives the FDA the power to regulate the tobacco industry overwhelmingly passed on July 30 in the House of Representatives. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act allows for sweeping regulation of tobacco products: flavored and clove cigarettes would be banned; cigarette manufacturers could no longer label products as "lights" or "ultralights" and must disclose the amount of all additives; any new type of cigarette would have to be given pre-market approval before being sold; and all tobacco advertisements on outdoor posters would have to be in black and white.

And lest anyone has any lingering confusion about the painful and premature death that befalls many smokers, current warning labels could be replaced with graphic images of tumors and mouth sores. Similar legislation has broad support in the Senate, though it's unclear if it has enough to override a threatened veto from the White House.

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, who represents the San Lorenzo Valley and the peninsula, co-sponsored the legislation. "Smoking is a killer, and we know that. It's just as simple as that, it's just as profound as that," she says.

Opponents of the legislation are just as pithy in their assessments.

"Government intervention is bad," says Ron Venturi, co-owner of Ron & Bridgette's Place tobacco store on Soquel Avenue. "That pretty much says it all," he says as his business partner and wife, Bridgette, emits an easy, throaty smoker's laugh.

Good or bad aside, the government intervention is selective and inconsistent. Cherry vanilla cigarettes are out, but menthols are allowed. Natural clove additives are banned, but ammonia? That's A-OK with Uncle Sam. In this, as in all things, politics have an important role to play.

Like Candy for a Baby
Curbing tobacco's appeal to minors is paramount to the logic behind much of the legislation's stipulations, especially the part that bans flavor additives in cigarettes. Proponents of the legislation reason that clove, spice and fruit-flavored smokes are "gateway cigarettes" that mask the harsh taste of tobacco, making for a deceptively delicious smoke that gets kids hooked.

"My hope is that it will be most effective with minors," says Eshoo. "We know from all of the research that's been done that once young people start smoking, it becomes a habit, and then an addiction. My hope is that young people will not become addicted."

But most young tobacco smokers don't regularly smoke the sugary cigarettes. A 2005 Centers for Disease Control study of the smoking habits of high schoolers found that while 23 percent smoke regular cigarettes and 14 percent smoked cigars, only about 5 percent smoke flavored or cloves.

The Venturis don't accept the Save-the-Children justification behind the new legislation.

"This has nothing to do with stopping minors from smoking," says Bridgette. "Minors have no access to our store."

Ron says the customers who purchase cloves and flavored cigarettes are a good mix of people of a variety of ages, and that he generally doesn't see people who start out with flavored cigarettes switch to regular cigarettes.

But 19-year-old Taylor Walton did. Walton, a regular customer of Ron & Bridgette's, says the first cigarettes he smoked when he was 16 were cloves. He says he supports the ban on flavored cigarettes.

"They're filthy," he says. If cloves had not been available to him when he was 16, he says it would have been "way less likely" that he would have started smoking at all. After cloves, Walton switched to Newports, a menthol cigarette, then to American Spirits. But the all-natural cigarettes are more expensive, so he now smokes Camels and says he hopes to quit in the next year or so.

The minty cigarette is the sole flavor still allowed under the new legislation. After significant debate, especially within the Congressional Black Caucus, menthol cigarettes were exempted from the flavor ban. Multiple surveys report that about 70 percent of African American smokers smoke menthols, compared to about 30 percent of white smokers.

Eshoo supports the banning of menthols as well, and blames the minty-not-so-fresh exemption on tobacco company-influenced politics.

"I think by banning all flavors, if that helps keep people away from something that they really like, then so be it," Eshoo says. "From the politics of it, the flavored cigarettes are more popular with adults than they are with minors. If something doesn't taste good, and it keeps people away from it, then so be it."

Cherry-Picking Additives
Perhaps surprisingly, Philip Morris USA, the largest manufacturer of cigarettes, has put its support behind the legislation.

"Philip Morris pushed it through because it wouldn't hurt business," Ron explains. "They don't sell flavored cigarettes." (Philip Morris does manufacture menthols.)

The majority of clove cigarettes, also called kreteks, are manufactured by Djarum, an Indonesian company. However, even regular cigarettes often have some type of flavor additive, so other tobacco companies may have to change the specific formulas for different cigarette varieties.

But while banana flavor may be banned, common cigarette additives like ammonia, polyethylene, acetic acid and polyvinyl acetate would still be allowed. These additives and their respective amounts would be required to be disclosed on cigarette boxes.

"I don't know why additives have to be in cigarettes at all," says Lorianne Hill, who says she has smoked since she was 12. "I think the tobacco companies are fucking sick, obsessed with money. But I'm addicted and I smoke and I'm gonna light one now," she says as she fires up a Marlboro 100. "They're winning," she adds, exhaling.

Ron says that many of his customers choose to purchase additive-free cigarettes, such as American Spirits. A natural cigarette smoker himself, he supports the provision that requires additives to be disclosed. He also believes other companies will move toward additive-free cigarettes.

Tobacco companies seem to have been anticipating stricter regulations of their products and have adopted different packaging accordingly. Instead of only labeling cigarette varieties as "lights" or "ultralights," a distinction not allowed under the new act, tobacco manufacturers have been color-coding varieties and labeling them with blend names: Marlboro Blend No. 27, Camel Turkish Blend, etc.

Tobacco studies have not shown that light cigarettes are any less harmful than regular cigarettes, and potential consumer misperception that lights are safer led to the banning of the light and ultralight distinctions.

Other tobacco companies oppose the legislation and find the distinction between regular, light and ultralight blends necessary. A statement issued by RJ Reynolds, which opposes the new tobacco bill, calls for "informed choice by adult consumers" that allows smokers to "switch to a lower-risk product." Presumably that's a reference to light cigarettes, or possibly smokeless tobacco, but the company does not specify.

The Venturis believe that the government could try to ban cigarettes outright within the next 20 years. Ron compares cigarettes to other potentially harmful but legal choices--"alcohol, barbecues, joining the military"--all choices that he thinks informed adults have the right to make for themselves. "Where does it end with government controls?" he asks.

"They think it will stop people from smoking, but it won't," Bridgette says. "People who want to quit smoking will quit smoking."

To find out the exact percentage of toxic chemical additives like ammonium hydroxide in your favorite smokes, visit www.philipmorrisusa.com/en/cms/Products/Cigarettes/Ingredients/Tobacco_Flavor_Ingredients/default.aspx?src=top_nav.

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