The Next Chapter of the Tobacco Wars: Unpacking the Latest Round of Constitutional Challenges

摘要

We have considered the tobacco industry’s challenges to legislative attempts to provide more health-related information on retail packaging. The first issue is taking and acquiring the industry’s intellectual property in Australia. The second challenge involves the tensions between graphic images and the First Amendment in the United States. We have argued that the Obama administration should take advantage of the current window of opportunity to aggressively restrict the industry’s control of its products. DESPITE OVERWHELMING evidence that smoking is a leading cause of preventable disease, the sale of tobacco products remains, largely, a lawful activity. The global tobacco epidemic kills approximately 6 million people annually, and without further policy and legislative intervention, this figure is predicted to grow to 8 million by 2030. 1 The motivation behind increasingly restrictive measures is compelling. Yet, as recent constitutional challenges in Australia and the United States highlight, such regulatory measures remain highly contested and problematic from a public health perspective.