Cigarette Death Still Sold in Pretty Packages

Court rules graphic images violate Big Tobacco’s First Amendment rights.
By
November 7, 2011
7 comments
Cigarette Death Still Sold in Pretty Packages

According to court-approved tobacco warning labels, smoking is glamorous and sexy, and it makes people smarter and live forever. (Photo: Stringer/Reuters)

U.S. smokers can light up without worrying about choking on a photo of a man jamming a cigarette into a hole in his throat. District Judge Richard Leon issued a temporary injunction Monday against nine truly disgusting warning labels that the Food and Drug Administration mandated would be placed on every pack of cigarettes sold in the United States starting in September 2012. The gruesome warnings included full-color pictures of rotted lungs, post-autopsy corpses, infected gums and a toddler sucking in second-hand smoke.

The World Health Organization is a zealous advocate of graphic warning labels on tobacco products, primarily because the disgusting visuals actually do deter smoking.

Leon freed the companies from their obligation to slather the revolting and accurate imagery on their noxious products, reasoning that Big Tobacco will probably win its lawsuit challenging the warnings on the grounds that the images are free speech violations.

Five of America’s largest tobacco companies pooled their resources to hire noted First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams to plead their case. Abrams was formerly best known for ensuring that the Pentagon Papers were published, for protecting the Brooklyn Museum’s artistic integrity from Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and for forcing the Fox News Channel to bite the bitter bullet of Senator Al Franken using the phrase “Fair and Balanced” in the title of his book.

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Tobacco is the top cause of preventable death in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reckons that one in every five U.S. deaths is attributable to tobacco. Approximately 21 percent of U.S. grownups smoke, as do many more children, numbers that are about the same as in 2004.

The World Health Organization is a zealous advocate of graphic warning labels on tobacco products, primarily because the disgusting visuals actually do deter smoking.

The tobacco lobby is purported to spend more than $100,000 every day to push its agenda in Washington.

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Comments

7
America consumes approx 500 Billion Alcoholic beverages A YEAR
hippocritsus
posted on Nov 30, 2011
The Facts and the Truth: Alcohol causes nearly 4 percent of deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or violence, the World Health Organization warned on Friday. Rising incomes have triggered more drinking in heavily populated countries in Africa and Asia, including India and South Africa, and binge drinking is a problem in many developed countries, the United Nations agency said. Yet alcohol control policies are weak and remain a low priority for most governments despite drinking's heavy toll on society from road accidents, violence, disease, child neglect and job absenteeism, it said. Approximately 2.5 million people die each year from alcohol related causes, the WHO said in its "Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health." "The harmful use of alcohol is especially fatal for younger age groups and alcohol is the world's leading risk factor for death among males aged 15-59," the report found.
hippocritsus
posted on Nov 30, 2011
And what's funny is the president stops smoking and takes up BOOZE
hippocritsus
posted on Nov 30, 2011
Any Questions ? dont ASK THE ANTI SMOKING MS CHAN thats for sure
hippocritsus
posted on Nov 30, 2011
With Alcohol killing more people in the USA and the World for that matter,And just in the USA costing the public a whopping $ 280 Billion a year or more just for its use SAY WHAT ? If all you experts want graphic images Let me know I have plenty of mangled bodies in cars,boats,suicides,murders,rapes,wives and children that have been beaten by SPOUSES.......Tell me where to send them..Its not Smoking People,ITS ALCOHOL Smoking DONT KILL OTHERS,Don't cause all of the above and don't even come Close Money wise To THE PUBLIC,Not even close..WAKE UP SHEEPLE
hippocritsus
posted on Nov 30, 2011
jd...the part you folks don't seem to get is that we do know that it's bad for us and are really tired of you whining about it. And all you do gooders that whine about our added healthcare costs, ask your state what they are doing with the master settlement money they recieve every year from the tobacco companies to cover that cost. I can answer that for you if you like...they add it to the general fund and act like they never got it. Check your state revenue disclosure, it's there. What we would like is if the energy put into this was put into something more useful, like maybe...I don't know...minding your own business.
MJMills
posted on Nov 10, 2011
If only more people knew that cigarettes were bad for them, maybe they wouldn't smoke.
jdbranded
posted on Nov 8, 2011