(Bloomberg) -- The US Supreme Court rejected a tobacco industry appeal and refused to block a new federal rule that will require cigarette packages to carry graphic new warnings about the health dangers of smoking.
The justices without explanation left intact a federal appeals court decision that said the warnings – which include prominent images of people with cancer, lung disease and erectile dysfunction – don’t violate the free-speech rights of cigarette makers under the Constitution’s First Amendment.
The high court rebuff puts the warning labels a step closer to becoming reality after more than a decade of legal wrangling. The FDA says it plans to begin enforcement starting in December 2025.
Companies led by British American Tobacco Plc’s R.J. Reynolds argued unsuccessfully that the warnings, which would cover the top half of each cigarette package, are “provocative and misleading” and should be subject to tougher scrutiny than the appeals court gave them.
“The warnings’ enormous size, shocking and misleading images, and highly charged messaging would drown out petitioners’ speech by effectively shouting ‘DON’T SMOKE!!!’” said the companies, a group that included units of Imperial Brands Plc and Vector Group Ltd.
The Biden administration urged the justices not to intervene. The government said the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals was right to rely on a 1985 Supreme Court ruling that gives regulators broad latitude to require product warnings so long as the content is “purely factual and uncontroversial.”
Even the tobacco companies “do not suggest any good-faith debate about the truth of the warning statements, and the statements are amply supported by the best available science,” US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued.
The FDA rule requires packages and advertisements to use a rotation of 11 warnings. One shows a woman with a bulge the size of baseball on the side of her neck, along with the words: “WARNING: Smoking causes head and neck cancer.” Another depicts a sickly-looking boy holding an oxygen mask to his face, with the words: “WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children.”
Congress called for new warning labels and graphics as part of the 2009 Tobacco Control Act. The FDA issued a rule to implement the law in 2011 but a federal appeals court tossed out that effort as violating the First Amendment. The agency tried again in 2020 with the latest regulation.
The tobacco companies are still pressing other arguments against the warning labels at a federal trial court in Tyler, Texas. The companies say the FDA didn’t comply with the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the rulemaking work of federal agencies.
The case is R.J. Reynolds Tobacco v. FDA, 24-189.
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