Posted on 03/01/2012 4:48:34 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
A U.S. judge sided with tobacco companies on Wednesday, ruling that regulations requiring large graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging and advertising violate free-speech rights under the U.S. Constitution...
"The government has failed to carry both its burden of demonstrating a compelling interest and its burden of demonstrating that the rule is narrowly tailored to achieve a constitutionally permissible form of compelled commercial speech," U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said in the ruling.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.reuters.com ...
Further, Leon said the warning labels were too big to pass constitutional muster and that the government has numerous other tools at its disposal to deter smoking such as raising cigarette taxes or including simple factual information on the labels rather than gruesome images.
The government should stop mandating a warning label and let the tobacco company devise a label including a label sufficiently dire that it would adequately warn consumers of a product that slowly kills people by design.
The tobacco industry hides behind the government label. The government should step back and let the tobacco industry fall on it’s own. The lawyers would have that carcass stripped clean in about a week.
Has anyone ever done any research on how (in)effective the warnings on cigarettes have been? How about the ban on advertising cigarettes? Are fewer people smoking now that those draconian restrictions on free speech have been imposed? Can the regulators demonstrate any success in their “compelling interest” argument for this violation of constitutional freedoms? Have they even tried?
The problem w/smokers continuing to smoke is not the lack of knowledge of health effects, it the addiction.
Smoking kills people
Warning labels do not work
Want to live? Don’t smoke
We labeled the packs
Like the Government requires
So you can’t sue us!
Want to live? Don’t smoke..and don’t eat, don’t drink anything, don’t walk, don’t run, don’t exercise...Geeeeez, dude, you ARE gonna die. I just choose to live first, in my own way.
Tobacco is not bad, as with many aspects of life, it is the inability of people to control themselves that leads to problems.
“Want to live? Don’t smoke..and don’t eat, don’t drink anything, don’t walk, don’t run, don’t exercise...Geeeeez, dude, you ARE gonna die. I just choose to live first, in my own way.”
Smoked for 22 years. Got too expensive so I quit.
It seems that people having a family history of lung problems should not smoke as there may be a genetic reason, but that is individual thing....
Since the anti's couldn't get much steam going on the health issue turned to the smell of smoke, which opened the door for people to complain to employers about the smell of perfumes in the work place. A recent case went to court over this.....every anti anything usually comes back to bite them in their arse...
Closed minds never learn and busy bodies love to interfere in other peoples lives. There are even some on this forum that love the government going after smokers and at the same time touting themselves as small government conservatives....they in fact loved big government as long as it goes after their little pet peeve and are laughable...
I hope you do not include me in that company.
The government is holding up and preserving the tobacco industry so it can snatch some money from the industy's pockets.
I would like the government out of tobacco regulation and taxation altogether. Let the tobacco companies produce their product and let people use their product. I have no problem with that.
But when smokers become ill and suffer and die horribly, let them access the courts, just like a person can for a myriad of other injuries caused by products. Let the matter be sorted out there. That would force the tobacco manufacturers to bear the true cost of suffering and death caused by their products.
If these true costs were assigned, as they should be, tobacco would immediately become an unprofitable product.
That is absolute BS.
A carton of Cigs, us produced, without taxes, overseas, costs $13
Here in the US, where they are made, $53-135
Who, exactly, is making the money?
It is the regulations that have made the product "dangerous." It is the government that mandates so many of the additives to the tobacco. Without those additives there would be no problems, except in a few cases.
We repainted our house a year after we started making our own cigarettes. 5 years later, when we were getting ready to move and started removing pictures from the walls the only noticeable mark of those pictures was the hole and a bit of dust across the top. The walls were not stained, nor were the windows.
So, get the government out of the regulation of the tobacco industry and there would be less problems.
The government makes far more money off of tobacco than the tobacco companies. That is why the government is protecting them and propping them up.
Such suits are fewer now because of the closing down of false class action law suits that line the pockets of lawyers. Some individuals have sued the tobacco companies and failed...
tobacco companies shouldn't be sued anymore than someone driving drunk and suing the car manufactures. If you go back far enough the democrats went after the tobacco due to the fact that 99% of their donations went to republicans.
Back in the 40's people knew smoking wasn't necessarily good for you. They were called cancer sticks then, but its peoples choice. We call it being responsible for your own choices in life.
I am not saying your one of those people, they know who they are. Go after what I don't like and the government is fine....but if their ox gets gored, they yell for smaller government....
The tobacco companies go back to way before government decided they were a cash cow they could blackmail...
I can appreciate your concern for those that die horribly by disease from supposed smoking. I worked 10 years in the hospital...More people die horrible in car accidents than from smokeing. So the idea of someone die horrible because of smoking doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
I have seen horrible deaths due to drinking and some die more horribly than some types of "smoking" patients...but the government learned by Prohibition that they have to go about getting smokers without prohibiting it...and there are idiots that don't want smokers to smoke in public or in the parks.
It has even been brought into divorce courts with one parent told they couldn't smoke when the had the child and in fact not even smoke when the child was not in their home....Its insane.
The great success with demonizing tobacco, led to other government intrusions,,,light bulbs, toilets, showers, plowing your land to plant a crop. What you can and cannot have in the car can we say "catalytic converters", many knew how to disconnect them and they got better millage...this could go on to book form, but thats enough for now....lets not leave out the personal responsiblility of each person for their choices....
Every death does not mean someone with deep pockets has to pay you money. greed is an ugly thing in humans and thats why there are so many lawyers and lawsuits....
Especially the parts dealing with environmental tobacco smoke. That's about as politicized as the science of "global warming".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.