Judge issues ruling in suit against FDA regulation of tobacco industry
Tobacco companies are celebrating a small victory today as a federal judge in Kentucky made a ruling in the first substantial case challenging the June decision to give the FDA regulatory control over the multi-billion dollar industry.
According to previous Maneater reports, President Obama signed into law the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in June. The act, among other things, banned flavored cigarettes, requires full disclosure of ingredients in cigarettes to the FDA and calls for reductions in youth-oriented tobacco advertising.
When the suit was filed on Aug. 31 2009, R.J. Reynolds Senior Vice President Martin Holton said, in a statement, the suit was not challenging the “vast majority” of the legislation.
“However, the law contains provisions that severely restrict the few remaining channels we have to communicate with adult tobacco consumers and, in our opinion, cannot be justified on any basis consistent with the demands of the First Amendment,” he said in his statement.
In the 47 page ruling Judge Joseph McKinley upheld many aspects of the law, but he overruled the ban on color and graphics in labels and advertising.
“They are clearly right when they say that images of packages of their products, simple brand symbols, and some uses of color communicate important commercial information about their products,” he wrote in the ruling.
In a statement released earlier today, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids said McKinley’s decision to repeal on the colored advertising ban was based on a misinterpretation of the law.
“With regard to the ban on the use of color and imagery in tobacco advertising, this provision is constitutional because it serves the compelling government interest of discouraging tobacco use by children and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest,” the group stated in the statement.
McKinley also over-ruled a provision of the law that banned tobacco companies from using their regulation by the FDA as a way to claim they are safer for consumers to use.
For more about the ruling, check out this article from the New York Times.