The decision means that an FDA rule requiring graphic depictions of the negative health consequences of smoking on cigarette packages will take effect.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 25 rejected an appeal from tobacco companies that alleged a federal regulatory rule requiring larger warnings on cigarette packages was unjustified and unconstitutional.
The justices did not explain their decision to
turn down the appeal from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and other tobacco companies. The move means that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rule is poised to take effect.
The FDA in 2019
proposed the rule, which would require larger warnings with updated language, including one saying that “smoking reduces blood flow to the limbs, which can require amputation.” Regulators said the new warnings stemmed from “the Government’s interest in promoting greater public understanding of the negative health consequences of cigarette smoking.”
U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in 2022
said the FDA’s requirements violated the First Amendment rights of tobacco companies.
“The government has not shown that compelling these large, graphic warnings is necessary in light of other options,” such as campaigns to raise public awareness of the consequences of tobacco usage, Barker wrote.
Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overruled Barker in 2024.
They
said that the warnings required by the FDA are “purely factual and uncontroversial,” prompting a specific analysis that led to the conclusion that the warnings were constitutional.
In their
petition to the Supreme Court, the tobacco companies said, quoting from a ruling in a separate case, that the appeals court judges wrongly “dismissed the provocative and ideological nature of the warnings,” allowing the FDA to “convert cigarette packages and advertisements into ‘a ”mobile billboard“ for the State’s ideological message,’ in order to ’tilt public debate in [its] preferred direction.'”
“Indeed, the Fifth Circuit’s holding hinged on the Orwellian view that compelled speech can be ‘purely factual’ under Zauderer even if it is neither ’true‘ nor ’accurate'—which conflicts with Zauderer,” they said.
In Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the Supreme Court said governments can, in many cases, require companies to incorporate certain information into their advertisements.
U.S. government lawyers
said in response that the appeals court correctly ruled that the warnings were factual. The decision “was a correct application of Zauderer and does not conflict with any decision of this Court or another court of appeals,” the lawyers said.
Under Supreme Court rules, at least four of the nine justices must agree to accept a petition challenging a lower court decision. That means that at least six justices did not agree to take up the appeal from the tobacco companies.
The court does not list how each justice decided.
