(MATASA Current CEO) Fonseca, Casa Magna, Quesada cigars, Dominican Republic Don José "Pepín" Garcia, Chairman, El Rey de Los Habanos, Miami, Florida, United States Aray Family – Daniel Aray Jr, Grandson of Founder (1952) Jose Aray, ACC Cigars, Guayaquil Ecuador, San Francisco, CA, Miami Florida, Macau SAR, Shanghai China. EPC – Ernesto Perez-Carillo, Founder EPC Cigar Company (2009), Miami, Florida, United States Nestor Miranda – Founder, Miami Cigar Company (1989) Miami, FL, United States Blanco family – Jose "Jochy" Blanco, son of Founder (1936) Jose Arnaldo Blanco Polanco, Tabacalera La Palma, Santiago, Dominican Republic Hermann Dietrich Upmann, founder of the H. Upmann brand 1844 in Cuba Marketing and distribution Pure tobacco, hand rolled cigars are marketed via advertisements, product placement in movies and other media, sporting events, cigar-friendly magazines such as Cigar Aficionado, and cigar dinners. Since handmade cigars are a premium product with a hefty price, advertisements often include depictions of affluence, sensual imagery, and explicit or implied celebrity endorsement. Cigar Aficionado, launched in 1992, presents cigars as symbols of a successful lifestyle, and is a major conduit of advertisements that do not conform to the tobacco industry's voluntary advertisement restrictions since 1965, such as a restriction not to associate smoking with glamour. The magazine also presents pro-smoking arguments at length, and argues that cigars are safer than cigarettes, since they do not have the thousands of chemical additives that cigarette manufactures add to the cutting floor scraps of tobacco used as cigarette filler. The publication also presents arguments that risks are a part of daily life and that (contrary to the evidence discussed in Health effects) cigar smoking has health benefits, that moderation eliminates most or all health risk, and that cigar smokers live to old age, that health research is flawed, and that several health-research results support claims of safety. Like its competitor Smoke, Cigar Aficionado differs from marketing vehicles used for other tobacco products in that it makes cigars the main (but not sole) focus of the magazine, creating a symbiosis between product and lifestyle. In the US, cigars have historically been exempt from many of the marketing regulations that govern cigarettes. For example, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act of 1970 exempted cigars from its advertising ban, and cigar ads, unlike cigarette ads, need not mention health risks. As of 2007, cigars were taxed far less than cigarettes, so much so that in many US