A judge on Wednesday blocked a federal requirement that would have begun forcing US tobacco companies to put large graphic images on their cigarette packages later this year to show the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit lighting up.
US District Judge Richard Leon in Washington ruled that the federal mandate to put the images, which include a sewn-up corpse of a smoker and a picture of diseased lungs, on cigarette packs violate the free speech amendment to the Constitution.
He had temporarily blocked the requirement in November last year, saying it was likely cigarette makers would succeed in a lawsuit, which could take years to resolve. That decision is already being appealed by the government.
Some of the largest US tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co and Lorillard Tobacco Co, had questioned the constitutionality of the labels, saying the warnings do not simply convey facts to inform people’s decision whether to smoke, but instead force cigarette makers to display government anti-smoking advocacy more prominently than their own branding. They also say that changing cigarette packaging would cost millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said that the public interest in conveying the dangers of smoking outweighs the companies’ free-speech rights.
Leon also pointed out alternatives for the federal government to curb tobacco use, such as increasing anti-smoking advertisements, raising tobacco taxes, reducing the size and changing content of the labels, and improving efforts to reduce youth access to tobacco products.
The FDA declined to comment on Wednesday.
The nine graphic images approved by the FDA in June include color images of a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a tracheotomy hole in his throat; a plume of cigarette smoke enveloping an infant receiving a mother’s kiss; a pair of diseased lungs next to a pair of healthy lungs; a diseased mouth afflicted with what appears to be cancerous lesions; a man breathing into an oxygen mask; a cadaver on a table with post-autopsy chest staples; a woman weeping; a premature baby in an incubator; and a man wearing a T-shirt that features a “No Smoking” symbol and the words: “I Quit.”
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