By Sam Letchworth

As if the double-whammy of a state and national cigarette tax, which together raised a pack of smokes $2 within a month, wasn’t enough to piss off smokers, now you can’t buy certain cigarettes at all.

As of Sept. 22, there is an FDA ban on all flavored cigarettes, including cloves. The reason? “Flavored cigarettes attract and allure kids into lifetime addiction,” says Howard Koh of the Department of Health and Human Services. Yeah, well, Howard, so does Ronald McDonald.

Besides, fruity cigarettes taste like crap. Everybody knows that. That’s why they only account for 1 percent of all tobacco sales. So … why?

Menthol “flavored” cigarettes, which represent 28 percent of all tobacco sales, will stay on the shelves. Apparently menthol doesn’t qualify as a “flavor.” Why? Maybe because Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama (what the hell?) smokes Newports. Who knows?

The FDA has a comprehensive plan for coming down on Big Tobacco. By 2012, tobacco companies won’t be allowed to advertise at public events. The terms “light,” “low” and “mild” will be banned from appearing on tobacco products. The warning labels “will be revised and strengthened.” Is this a push for prohibition? Hell, it already is prohibition. Try to buy a pack of cloves at the gas station.

Isn’t this America, a capitalist, free-market nation where an entrepreneur can market and sell a product? And as far as the well-being of the public is concerned, launching economic attacks against a business that pulls a lot of weight for this country, during a recession, is bad timing to say the least. To say the most, it’s downright stupid.

But strangely enough, the “flavor ban” doesn’t apply to cigars or dip or any other form of tobacco. Just cigarettes. And what about cherry-flavored vodka and peppermint schnapps? Do these flavored alcoholic beverages not appeal to kids? Smirnoff Ice tastes like soda pop. But to ban these products would be unconstitutional. We’ve already been through all this with alcohol and the 21st Amendment. The Supreme Court decided a long time ago that prohibition was a bad idea.

So flavored cigarettes are prohibited now because, according to the FDA, they mislead young people into thinking that these products are less addictive and harmful. Really. This wanna-be nanny state should give kids a little more credit than that. Kids aren’t stupid. They know cigarettes are bad for you.

There is another, more appropriate word for “nanny state.” They call it fascism. It is what every state tries to become, throughout history, unless it is put in check by the people. And this is how it works. By chipping away at freedom, piecemeal. Right now it’s just cigarettes, but what’s next? Once a precedent has been set for carte-blanche government control on a product, the sky is the limit. Come on, two consenting adults should be able to smoke a flavored cigarette in the privacy of their own home. Hell, there’s not much place else you can smoke these days.

So smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. Before long, you won’t even be able to buy a cigarette-flavored cigarette.