The groups maintain that the FDA is required by law to issue a final rule implementing Section 201(a) of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, which requires cigarette packages and advertisements to bear color graphic images and specified textual warnings.
On June 21, 2011, the FDA announced the nine graphic cigarette health warnings required to appear on every pack of cigarettes, carton and cigarette advertisement no later than September 2012. However, reports the Wall Street Journal, tobacco companies sued, and those labels were struck down in federal court on First Amendment grounds in 2013. The FDA has not taken up the issue of graphic warning labels since.
The Journal notes that the lawsuit filed this week is asking the court to set a deadline for the FDA to establish a new graphic warning rule, saying that the FDA "has been in violation [of the 2009 law] for more than four years."'
Across the globe, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids estimates that more than 90 other countries have graphic warning labels, with Australia and Spain including photos on cigarette packs of gangrene feet and decaying teeth.
