US court blocks graphic warnings on cigarette packs

A U.S. federal judge on Monday blocked a requirement forcing tobacco companies to put graphic images showing the dangers of smoking on cigarette packs. In June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released nine new specific graphic warnings (such as a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a hole in his throat; a cloud of cigarette smoke within inches of a baby's face; a pair of healthy lungs next to the diseased lungs of a smoker) to go into effect in September of 2012, the first change in U.S. cigarette warning labels in 25 years. The FDA said the labels were to cover the entire top half of cigarette packs, front and back and include a hotline number to kick the habit. The labels were to constitute 20 percent of cigarette advertising, and marketers were to rotate the use of the images. Five tobacco companies challenged the selection of the nine graphic warnings as an unconstitutional intrusion on commercial free speech. Judge Richard Leon agreed with them, saying the companies would suffer irreparable harm if the provision were enforced before it was fully decided in courts, a process that is likely to take years. He ruled that the labels were not factual and required the companies to use cigarette packages as billboards for what he described as the government’s “obvious anti-smoking agenda.”