The U.S. government is abandoning a legal battle to require that cigarette packs carry a set of large and often macabre warning labels depicting the dangers of smoking and encouraging smokers to quit.
The legal battle over graphic labels on cigarette packages edged closer to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, as a federal appellate court declined to reconsider its decision that found the labels unconstitutional.
In response to a disappointing ruling on the government's plan to put graphic warnings and pictures on cigarette packages, the Justice Department filed papers Tuesday asking for a full-court review.
The federal government can't require tobacco companies to put large graphic health warnings on cigarette packages to show that smoking can disfigure and even kill people, a divided federal appeals court panel ruled Friday.
A Food and Drug Administration scientific advisory panel says dissolvable tobacco products could reduce health risks compared with smoking cigarettes but also have the potential to increase the overall number of tobacco users.
The federal government cannot force tobacco companies to put large graphic images and anti-smoking warnings on their cigarette packages, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
Can Uncle Sam legally force tobacco companies to put images of corpses, diseased body parts and tracheotomy patients on their cigarette packages?
Several public-health groups are weighing in on a lawsuit about graphic cigarette warning labels that include the sewn-up corpse of a smoker, saying the federal government has a strong interest in informing people about the effects of tobacco and that current warnings aren't sufficient.
A Florida Supreme Court ruling that threw out a $145 billion award against cigarette makers is biting Big Tobacco back, making it dramatically easier for thousands of smokers to sue and turning the state into the nation's hot spot for damage awards.
