In a 2-1 decision on August 24, 2012, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) mandate requiring graphic images on cigarette packages is unconstitutional. The D.C. Circuit’s ruling seems to oppose a Sixth Circuit decision in March that upheld the FDA’s general authority to compel cigarette companies to place the images on their packages. Despite acknowledging that commercial speech is generally afforded less First Amendment protection, and that the government can “use shock, shame, and moral opprobrium to discourage people from becoming smokers,” Judge Janice Roger Brown noted in the majority opinion that, “this case raises novel questions about the scope of the government’s authority to force the manufacturer of a product to go beyond making purely factual and accurate commercial disclosures and undermine its own economic interest – in this case, by making ‘every single pack of cigarettes in the country [a] mini billboard’ for the government’s anti-smoking message.”
Read More... (Information v. Advocacy: The D.C. Circuit Puts the Current Version of the FDA's Cigarette Label Requirement Up in Smoke)
| Posted by Ethridge Brittin Ricks (Britt) on Mon. August 27, 2012 2:14 PM
Categories: Cigarette Smoking