A US Court blocked the FDA from requiring cigarette warnings on boxes this week, calling the graphics "emotion-provoking images...". U.S. District Judge Richard Leon 
decided in a Washington court yesterday that tobacco companies shouldn't have to display images of diseased lungs or a cadaver bearing chest staples on an autopsy table, because this would "unconstitutionally compel speech." Nor should companies have to print 1-800-QUIT on cigarette boxes.
I guess what he's saying is that cigarette companies have the right to package fantasies up in the tobacco they manufacture, fantasies of how cool smokers are, that blithely omit the disease and death their product metes out. The FDA, on the other hand, has no right to present the more accurate side of the story.
You know that smoking causes cancer, heart disease, vascular problems. Did you know that smokers have 7 times the risk of abdominal aortic aneurism (AAA) than non-smokers? You probably know about second-hand smoke. Did you know about third hand smoke which stays in home and hotel walls and ceiling tiles for 30 or 40 years, affecting the health of not only present but future occupants?
The judge says the images on cigarette boxes crossed the line between "factual information" and "government advocacy". The line is "frustratingly blurry", he says, but he sees it.
