WASHINGTON (Reuters) – the US Government called the
ruling of a judge who blocked the attempt to bind to the
tobacco companies to show graphic images in packages of
cigarettes and advertising, as a man who exhales the smoke to
through a hole in the throat.
The appeal was expected after the district judge
Richard Leon took the side of the tobacco companies to
earlier this month and granted a term interim
blocking requirement.
Leon said that companies would probably have success in
his claim of unconstitutionality against the new
warning graphic as a violation of the first
Amendment.
Food and Drug Administration
United (FDA for its acronym in English), launched in June nine
warnings new so that they enter into force in September of
2012, the first change in the warning labels of
cigarettes in 25 years.
Congress ordered the FDA to impose new labels
as part of a law of 2009 makes the Agency
responsible for regulating products with tobacco.
The requirement was that the warnings cover the
top of the front and the back of the package half
cigarettes and 20 percent of the ads printed.
In addition, the warnings should contain color images
of the consequences for the health of the consumption of tobacco, such as
lung diseases, rotten teeth and corpses.
But Leon said that the images were not adapted, as
that means that it is unlikely that they will survive the supervision
constitutional.
Stressed that they provoke an emotional response rather than
limited to provide factual information and not
controversial, crossing the line to use the publicity of the
company to promote actions officers.
The Government appealed the ruling of Leon the Court of
United States for the District of Columbia appeals. In
ultimately, the case could end up in the Supreme Court.
R.J. Reynolds of Reynolds American Inc., Lorillard unit
Inc., Liggett Group LLC and Commonwealth Brands Inc, property of
the British Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, sued the FDA in
August to block the new warnings.
Argued that the new graphic warnings the
forced “to participate in the anti-smoking defence” in the name of the
Government, which violated their right to freedom of
expression.
Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable deaths in
United States and represents one in every five deaths in the
year, according to the Centers for prevention and Control of
Diseases.
About 21 percent of American adults
smoke cigarettes, a number that has changed little since the 2004.