The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a challenge by the tobacco industry regarding the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, a federal law that grants the FDA more power over the packagaing and marketing of tobacco products in the US.
Specifically, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act gives the FDA the ability to force tobacco companies to include graphic pictures on their packaging as another means of warning the public about the dangers of smoking.
These graphic pictorial warnings are mandated by the law to cover the top half of both the front and back panels on a package of cigarettes as well as the top 20 percent on all printed advertisments. These graphics would have gone into effect last year had the tobacco companies not appealed the law to the nation's highest court.
Lawyers representing the tobacco industry unsuccessfully argued that such mandatory graphics violated their First Amendment rights.
Such graphics have been implemented in other countries and early data suggest they are effective in encouraging smokers to quit as well as discouraging younger people to begin smoking.
In the US, tobacco is responsible for almost one quarter of deaths among both men and women annually (according to the Tobacco Atlas). Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death in the world, believed to kill at least five million people every year.
Source: MNT
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