Consumer Law

U.S. Government and Big Tobacco in Fight Over Corrective Advertising

By Brian Wolfman

For years, the tobacco companies lied about tobacco. They said it wasn't harmful or that the evidence of its health effects wasn't conclusive, when they knew it caused cancer and a range of other diseases. They said that tobacco wasn't addictive when they knew it was. In the government's case against the tobacco companies, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler found in 2006 that the companies had deceived the public. As explained here, now the tobacco companies and the U.S. Department of Justice are battling over the kinds of corrective advertising Judge Kessler should order. Here are a few of the 14 ads that the government wants:

We falsely marketed low tar and light cigarettes as less harmful than regular cigarettes to keep people smoking and sustain our profits.

For decades, we denied that we controlled the level of nicotine delivered in cigarettes. Here's the truth. ... We control nicotine delivery to create and sustain smokers' addiction, because that's how we keep customers coming back.

We told Congress under oath that we believed nicotine is not addictive. We told you that smoking is not an addiction and all it takes to quit is willpower. Here's the truth: Smoking is very addictive. And it's not easy to quit.

Just because lights and low tar cigarettes feel smoother, that doesn't mean they are any better for you. Light cigarettes can deliver the same amounts of tar and nicotine as regular cigarettes.

The tobacco companies say that court imposition of the government's proposal would violate their constitutional rights and a prior court of appeals ruling in the case.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on February 24, 2011 (boomark / email).