Federal government officials have asked a U.S. District judge to require tobacco companies to place large graphic pictures on cigarette packaging to clearly remind users just how dangerous smoking is.
According to the Associated Press, cigarette manufacturers have told Judge Richard Leon that they do not believe they should be forced to promote the government’s campaign against smoking with “massive, shocking, gruesome warnings” on tobacco products they legally sell. Government officials disagreed and argued that the images of diseased and dead smokers they want on the packages are “factually uncontroverted.”
In a previous ruling, Leon decided that the photos approved by the Food and Drug Administration went further than simply displaying the facts about the health hazards of smoking. He also previously ruled that the suggested size of the labels were too large and unconstitutional. The originally proposed pictures covered the top half of the product packs from front to back, and included a phone number for a stop-smoking hotline.
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