Cigarette warning label (Courtesy the FDA)
A federal judge has blocked the government’s plans to require tobacco companies to put graphic warning labels on cigarette packaging and advertising starting next September.
In a 29-page decision, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon granted a preliminary injunction requested by five tobacco companies, dealing a setback to the Food and Drug Administration’s initiative.
The judge wrote that the case brought by the tobacco companies challenges, on First Amendment grounds, a “bold” effort by Congress and the FDA “in their obvious and continuing efforts to minimize, if not eradicate, tobacco use in the United States.” He said the cigarette makers have “demonstrated a substantial likelihood” that their legal challenge will succeed and that they would suffer “irreparable harm” if the warnings were required while they pursue their court case.
As The Washington Post reports, “At the very least, the unexpected decision will significantly delay the federal government’s most aggressive attempt to fight the nation’s leading cause of preventable death and the first major overhaul of cigarette warnings in a quarter century.”
While tobacco companies hailed the decision, anti-smoking advocates urged the government to challenge the ruling, and an appeal is considered likely.
The warning label plan unveiled in June by the FDA was intended to shock customers with nine graphic images of tobacco’s effects, including smokers exhaling through a tracheotomy hole, struggling for breath in an oxygen mask and lying dead on a table with a long chest scar. The images would dominate half of the front and back of each pack, along with 20 percent of each large ad.
As part of his reasoning that tobacco companies were likely to win their First Amendment argument, Leon said the warnings clearly went beyond the government’s power to require companies to disclose information.
The proposed warning labels are part of the FDA’s broad new anti-smoking strategy using powers the agency gained, under a 2009 law, to regulate tobacco. The agency has restricted the use of the terms “light,” “low” and “mild,” banned fruit, candy and spice flavorings and is considering taking action against the sale of menthol cigarettes.
STUART SILVERSTEIN
Related Posts:
Canada Unveils Bigger Graphic Cigarette Pack Warnings
Tobacco Giants File New Suit to Block Warning Labels
FDA Unveils Graphic Cigarette Warnings to Scare Smokers Into Quitting
