[Despanan]

The reason why they're banning cloves is not because they want to take cloves out of the hands of nineteen year old art students.

It's also not because they want to, as vindelectreddumbass put it: power "I can take away whatever I want".

It's because it's a popular decision. Tobacco companies have been the whipping-boy of every political administration for the last twenty years. It's perfect: everyone agrees they're evil, even smokers.

They won't ban cigs outright because so many people are addicted (If I'm not mistaken, Obama is a smoker) but they will ban flavored cigs because it has very little effect on the market, and it makes it look like they're doing something.

This ban is not directed at cloves, it just hits cloves because the law is a blunt instrument.

Basically, Obama needed some legislation that everyone agreed with, going after flavored cigs was the easiest target, and our wonderful, black, sticks of pretension just happened to get caught in the crossfire.

This would've happened under McCaine, or Putin, or Ron Paul just as easily.