A U.S. judge sided with tobacco companies on Monday, granting a temporary injunction blocking rules requiring new warning labels that use graphic images like a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a hole in his throat.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon granted a temporary injunction after determining that the tobacco companies would likely prevail in their lawsuit challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s requirement as unconstitutional because it compels speech in violation of the First Amendment.
The Food and Drug Administration planned to require the images including a cloud of cigarette smoke within inches of a baby’s face; a pair of healthy lungs next to the diseased lungs of a smoker; a smoker’s stained teeth and a lip; and a dead smoker on an autopsy table with surgical stitches in his chest.
