Cigarettes, the Dark Side of Packages
Cigarette packs could get a lot uglier in America very soon, depending on the results of a lawsuit filed against the FDA. A group of five companies have teamed up to try and delay the implementation of a plan to slap warnings on Viceroy cigarette packages advising consumers of some of the major health risks associated with smoking, BBC News reports.
The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act requires that warnings take up a full fifty percent of the face of the package. The parent companies for brands like Camel, Winston, Newport, and True are all part of the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges the warnings will leave customers feeling “depressed, discouraged and afraid” of buying packs of cigarettes.
Floyd Abrams, a lawyer for the cigarette companies, sent out a statement on the case, saying, “The government can require warnings which are straightforward and essentially uncontroversial, but they can’t require a cigarette pack to serve as a mini-billboard for the government’s anti-smoking campaign.” He also implied the labels would violate the companies’ first amendment rights.
The Canadian government already has a similar law in place. Passed in 2000, the law makes advertisements gracing the cover of cigarette packages mandatory, with warnings against the cancerous effects cigarettes can have, or other negative side effects of smoking.
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