Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you. Countless campaigns during the past few decades, along with news stories and those ubiquitous warning labels on every cigarette advertisement and the packs themselves, have done their job of spreading the word.
Anyone who thinks they can be a smoker and get through life without any negative impacts on their health, from simple shortness of breath ”“ and bad breath at that ”“ to deadly lung cancer, is simply deluding themselves.
With that in mind, we feel that the new, extremely graphic cigarette labels are not only unnecessary, but out of line.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved nine of these new labels, which take up more than half of the front of each pack of cigarettes. All of them are horrible images, from a pair of diseased lungs to a sewn-up “corpse” of a person who has died as a result of their cigarette use.
These new warning labels represent a major change from the current text-only warnings. The images will take up the entire top half, front and back, of the cigarette packaging and must constitute 20 percent of any cigarette advertising.
It’s no secret that smoking can indeed lead to the conditions shown on the packs, from mouth cancer to death, but this new mandate goes far beyond a “frank and honest warning about the dangers of smoking,” as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius described them.
We already have such a “frank and honest” warning on every package of cigarettes, and every ad, telling consumers that light cigarettes are not safer, that smoking kills and causes cancer, that pregnant women especially should avoid it.
For the government to take this further step of requiring disgusting images to dominate each package is discrimination against a legitimate industry that is selling a product the American public wants to buy. Cigarettes are still a legal product, and as such, cigarette makers should not be regulated to the point that they cannot market their product to potential buyers.
What’s next? Along with cigarettes, obesity is another major killer in the U.S. Is the FDA going to start requiring images of grotesquely obese, suffering people on every bottle of soda? Perhaps we should expect images of a diseased heart or a cholesterol clogged artery to dominate the next package of Ho-Hos we grab at the
store.
We agree regulations are needed on business to protect the environment and make sure the product is up to safety standards. But for products that are inherently harmful when used regularly, however, such as cigarettes, alcohol and junk food ”“ the government needs to walk a fine line.
There comes a point where the government is overstepping its bounds, moving from a protector who makes sure we have the right information to make the right decisions to a hovering, nagging mother.
Public service announcements and text-based warning labels about products that can affect our health are one thing. Dominating the packaging of that very product with an image meant to keep you from buying or using it is another issue altogether.
A great many restrictions have been put on cigarette companies to limit their self promotion and their affiliation with events and activities that children might watch. But no industry should be forced to disparage its own product, especially not right on the packaging.
Cigarettes can only be purchased by adults, and any advertisement or packaging or flavoring that is said to appeal especially to children has been quashed. Adults should be left alone to make their own decisions on legal products without having to look at the image of a corpse.
Four of the five largest U.S. tobacco companies sued the federal government Tuesday, saying the warnings violate their free speech rights, according to the Associated Press. We agree, and we hope a court will let the FDA know that this time they’ve overstepped their bounds.
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Today’s editorial was written by Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski, on behalf of the Journal Tribune editorial board. Questions? Comments? Contact Schulze Muszynski by calling 282-1535, Ext. 322, or via e-mail at kristenm@journaltribune.com.
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