Here's one of the proposed tag lines: Surgeon General's Warning: Cigar Smoking Can Cause Lung Cancer and Heart Disease. When the agency actually implements the labels after a month of consumer review, you may encounter other, equally unsubtle admonitions, but the general message remains the same: Cigars are not good for you. If you smoke three or four cigars a day, says the American Cancer Society, you increase your risk of oral cancer more than eight times over. If you find the time to smoke more than five cigars a day, somebody needs to give you more work. And by the way, you're also facing a risk of oral cancer that's 16 times greater than that of a nonsmoker. Oral cancer, huh? Sounds like a good time.
Despite all this unappetizing knowledge (which, by the way, has been in general circulation since 1982), young American males are lighting up at a record pace. Since the mid-'90s, cigar consumption has risen 70 percent — and that's just your average, corner-store cigar. When you get into the luxury stuff, we're talking about a 250 percent rise. That's a heck of a lot of imported tobacco, and a lot of smelly suits.
We're not here to hand out advice, but... no, wait a minute. That's exactly what we're here to do. And here it is. Young cigar smokers of America: You look like pretentious idiots, in part because you are not dignified enough to carry off a cigar. Get with the times, already, and stub out that stogie. Sure, you're going to have to find something else to do with your extra cash, but that shouldn't be too tough. Gordon Gekko might have advised looking into biotech.