The ninth annual Habanos Festival just wound up in Havana. The festival, a five day celebration of Cuban cigars, attracts cigar enthusiasts from all over the world — including the United States.

You really have to like Cuban cigars to risk receiving a nastygram from OFAC demanding hefty fines for violations of the U.S. embargo on Cuba. And most Americans who sneak into Havana through Canada or Mexico are smart enough to pretend to be Canadian when approached by reporters. Most, but not all. This year a heart surgeon and professor at Stanford volunteered his name to reporter from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and said this:

“We don’t do anything illegal against the government policies,” said [name redacted by ExportLawBlog], 45, a heart surgeon and Stanford University professor from San Jose. “But I think to visit any country is the basic right of a human being. We are not taking in any contraband. We just enjoy and finish the cigars here and we go back.”

“I don’t see it as a violation,” he said, echoing other Americans at the festival. “It’s a personal right.”

I’ll make a deal with the good doctor. I’ll agree to not perform heart surgery if he’ll agree not to practice law.

(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling for the title.)

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