Supreme Court Denies Tobacco Industry’s Challenge to Graphic Anti-Smoking Labels on Cigarette Packs

The Supreme Court decided on Monday not to hear a challenge from major tobacco companies regarding the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) mandate for graphic health warnings on cigarette packages and advertisements.

In 2020, the FDA introduced a rule requiring that health warnings cover 50% of the front and back panels of cigarette packages and at least 20% of the space on cigarette advertisements. The rule includes 11 text-and-image graphics, such as a warning featuring a human lung with the message “WARNING: Tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers” and another image of a child holding an oxygen mask, accompanied by the message: “WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children.”

Major tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, filed lawsuits, claiming the warnings violated the First Amendment and accusing the FDA of mishandling the rulemaking process. Initially, a federal judge in Texas sided with the tobacco companies and blocked the rule. However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a conservative-leaning court, reversed that decision, upholding the FDA’s rule in a unanimous ruling in March. The court affirmed that the government could mandate such warnings, under a long-standing Supreme Court standard that permits regulation of commercial speech, as long as the message is factual, uncontroversial, and aligned with a legitimate public interest.

The case was sent back to the lower courts for further review, but the tobacco companies appealed to the Supreme Court before the proceedings could continue. The tobacco companies argued that the warnings were historically unprecedented and designed to shock rather than inform consumers, warning that such a ruling could set a dangerous precedent for the government to impose similar graphic warnings on other products.

The Biden administration, however, urged the Supreme Court not to intervene, backing the 5th Circuit’s decision, and contended that the warnings serve a legitimate public interest in educating consumers about the risks of tobacco use. The administration also suggested that the Supreme Court should not take up the case at this stage, given that the lower courts had yet to rule on the companies’ procedural challenges.

Though the case is unlikely to return to the high court immediately, it remains possible that further proceedings could bring it back to the Supreme Court in the future.