The government sure likes to keep tobacco lawyers busy. In yet another case involving the industry, a court recently ruled that the city of Worcester’s limit on tobacco advertising in windows is unconstitutional. The city had made it illegal for a store to display cigarette ads that show brand names in a store window. As you can tell from the article, the court applied the rational basis test in invalidating the law.
-
Categories
-
Archives
- July 2018
- June 2016
- July 2014
- June 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
15 Comments
James T. Curtis posted on April 3, 2012 at 11:30 pm
This makes logical sense. Regardless of anyones opinion on cigarettes, tobacco companies have the right to advertise as any other company. The article said that Worcester passed the law to try to demote people from smoking since the city’s percentage of smokers had gone up so significantly recently compared to the rest of the state. Besides this being against freedom of speech, this is a case of the law deciding what is best for the people and once again regardless of personal opinions on smoking, the law shouldn’t tell people what is good or bad for them.
Sophie Park posted on April 4, 2012 at 4:13 pm
Although I understand the intention of Worcester making it illegal for stores to display cigarette brand ads, it still violates the First Amendment of free speech for these tobacco companies. Worcester may be better off limiting the size and number of ads one store may display.
Jeffrey Malat posted on April 6, 2012 at 7:34 pm
Whether you are for smoking or anti smoking, this is clearly in violation of freedom of speech. The city of Worcester passed this in an attempt to decrease the number of smokers in their city because of the obvious negative effects caused by smoking however, smoking is legal in America and therefore it is not the cities place or right to tell the people not to do something that is perfectly legal. An alternative for the city is to run anti-smoking campaigns in the schools to try and prevent kids from starting to smoke.
Rafael Grados posted on April 8, 2012 at 10:21 pm
This issue should be addressed on a national level as it involves topics, such as freedom of speech, that transcend the constitutional power of cities such as Worcester. Worcester should push this complaint towards the nation-wide scenario.
Katheryn Koch posted on April 9, 2012 at 9:36 am
While I understand where the city of Worcester is coming from in an attempt to lessen the amont of smokers, but this would not be an efficient way to do so. Regardless of whether the advertising is brand specific or not, people will continue to smoke because they either already know the brands are out there or they know the store sells tobacco products and will discover the brands once entering the store. If the city feels very strongly about this issue, it should figure out how to do so not only within the law, but also the most efficient way.
Nick Li posted on April 9, 2012 at 10:45 am
I don’t think this will make much sense. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think the source of new smokers (which the ads might be trying to draw) comes from teenagers who cannot obtain tobacco legally, so they resort to the streets. These teens don’t care about the brand they get, so long as they get the tobacco itself.
The advertisements will probably draw the attention of people who already are adults/legal smokers and would have went seeking to buy tobacco anway.
Chin-Yi (Lucy ) Kuo posted on April 9, 2012 at 11:17 am
I agree with Nick. I think the adds will only make people who are already smokers to switch to another brand, and will not increase the smoking population.
Hope Blalock posted on April 9, 2012 at 1:45 pm
I support the invalidation of the law; Worcester’s policy was a violation of freedom of speech. I also agree with Sophie that Worcester would do well to limit the size and number of advertisements rather than banning brand-name advertisements all together.
Molly Karg posted on April 9, 2012 at 3:49 pm
While I also agree that this ban on advertisement is unconstitutional, I still commend the city of Worcester. I worked there last Summer and some parts of Worcester are not the safest, cleanest, or most pleasant places for kids to grow up. If banning cigarette advertisements helps keeps kids from smoking them, then perhaps the ruling should be reexamined. However, there are also more efficient ways to spend money to keep kids from cigarettes.
Yuchen Qin posted on April 10, 2012 at 9:12 pm
I think the court’s ruling is correct. The 1st Amendment stressed the freedom of speech on many occasions, including this one. Regardless of the fact the company manufactures tobacco, it owes the right to advertise.
Julianne Kodack posted on April 10, 2012 at 11:27 pm
As much as I despise smoking and do not agree with advertising on any part, I do believe this is a violation of freedom of speech. Stores should be able to advertise this product if they feel it is necessary. Stores are allowed to advertise tanning and alcohol and that can be just as bad as smoking in some cases. They should just put a limit on the size of the advertisements instead of banning it completely.
Yuting Su posted on April 17, 2012 at 3:32 pm
Tobacco companies operates their company legally; therefore should obtain legitimate rights and be protected under first amendment. The law that stop tocacco compnies from advertising thorugh windows of stores, violates freedom of speech. Unless Unit States regards tobacco as illegal product, government cannot restrict tobacco companies in this way.
Evan Weinreb posted on April 22, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Even if tobacco clearly has a negative impact on society, If these companies are selling legal products why shouldn’t they be able to advertise? If the city wants to stop people from smoking they have other means in doing so (education, possibly more local taxes on the products) but trying to stop advertising is hurting businesses and possibly jobs at a time where the country can not afford this.
Jinfeng Cai posted on April 27, 2012 at 10:13 am
My current event paper was actually about the tobacco advertising issue. Though government tries to limit tobacco advertising in order to arise people’s awareness of how unhealty smoking would cause, it still violates the 1st Amendement which protects various types of speech.
Stephanie Nowak posted on May 1, 2012 at 10:39 pm
In accordance with the earlier posts, this is a violation of the First Amendment. It is practically shoved down our throats that smoking is bad and causes cancer. I’m not sure how easy it would be to come across a person that disagrees and thinks smoking is good. Everyone has been given the facts a silver spoon and some people choose to still smoke. To each his own right? In this case good intentions became a little too invasive.