Columbia, SC – Four of the five largest U.S. tobacco companies sued the federal government Tuesday over new graphic cigarette labels that include the sewn-up corpse of a smoker and a picture of diseased lungs, saying the warnings violate their free speech rights and will cost millions of dollars to print.
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The companies, led by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Lorillard Tobacco Co., said the warnings no longer simply convey facts to allow people to make a decision whether to smoke. They instead force them to put government anti-smoking advocacy more prominently on their packs than their own brands, the companies say. They want a judge to stop the labels.
“Never before in the United States have producers of a lawful product been required to use their own packaging and advertising to convey an emotionally-charged government message urging adult consumers to shun their products,” the companies wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
The FDA refused to comment, saying the agency does not discuss pending litigation. But when she announced the new labels in June, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called them frank and honest warnings about the dangers of smoking.
The FDA approved nine new warnings to rotate on cigarette packs. They will be printed on the entire top half, front and back, of the packaging. The new warnings also must constitute 20 percent of any cigarette advertising. They also all include a number for stop-smoking hotline
One warning label is a picture of a corpse with its chest sewed up and the words: “Smoking can kill you.” Another label has a picture of a healthy pair of lungs beside a yellow and black pair with a warning that smoking causes fatal lung disease.
The lawsuit said the images were manipulated to be especially emotional. The tobacco companies said the corpse photo is actually an actor with a fake scar, while the healthy lungs were sanitized to make the diseased organ look worse.
The companies also said the new labels will cost them millions of dollars for new equipment so they can frequently change from warning to warning and designers to make sure the labels meet federal requirements while maintaining some distinction among brands.
Joining R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard in the suit are Commonwealth Brands Inc., Liggett Group LLC and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Inc. Altria Group Inc., parent company of the nation’s largest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, is not a part of the lawsuit.
The free speech lawsuit is a different action than a suit by several of the same companies over the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The law, which took affect two years ago, cleared the way for the more graphic warning labels, but also allowed the FDA to limit nicotine. The law also banned tobacco companies from sponsoring athletic or social events and prevented them from giving away free samples or branded merchandise.
A federal judge upheld many parts of the law, but the companies are appealing.
I have another idea for a picture that can be included on cigarette boxes – a child standing next to mom or dad’s gravesite crying – I miss you! why did you have to smoke?
i dont smoke but i think these pictures are way too graphic. do you see any pictures of what alcohol can do to an unborn baby on a bottle of johnnie walker etc? or a picture of DWI crash victims?
I’m an anti-smoking advocate, yet I see merit in this lawsuit. Whoever heard of a product being forced to scream “don’t buy me, I can make you sick”? Let the government spend its own money advertising the negative effects of smoking. If the nicotine loving fools don’t get it, they’ve only themselves to blame.
Why are there no mandated pictures of damaged livers and drunk driver car wrecks on bottles of alcohol?! This is a step too far. I don’t think any serious smoker out there, doesn’t realize the dangers of smoking, they do it anyway, because it is their right to do so! What will these graphic image labels do except hurt the tobacco companies shareholders bottom line, and maybe control your appetite?!
On a side note, why isn’t this being pursued with alcohol? According to the same reasoning, shouldn’t there be graphic pictures of damaged livers and drunk driver car wrecks on every bottle of booze out there? Imagine what an uproar there would be if you bought a bud light or corona and looked at the bottle only to see a nasty liver.
This is an example of gov’t going too far. Hopefully whichever court hears this case, will see that free speech is being trampled upon.
If we think these adds are just for adults than i would totally agree that these pictures are way out of hand. But i am under the impression, perhaps mistakenly so, that most smokers start while teenagers, when they aren’t fully capable of comprehending what long term addiction means. Maybe these pictures will scare them.
Of course you can argue that if that is the real problem then the government should be the ones footing the bill to enforce it’s own law not to sell to minors.
if the price of cigarettes and the knowledge of its effects and the current pictures doesnt stop- then i doubt these will……like one of the above posters wrote- many ppl start when they are young teenagers…..by the time they are old enough to understand logically the side effects -they have a full blown nicotine addiction….i wish they would have signs on cakes and rugalech.. to prevent obesity and heart disease…but as a comulsive emotional overeater…it wouldnt help…so i can imagine this wont help a smoker…theyll try to stop for a few days and then fall back….so goes life…..
in canada they have had these graphic pictures for years.