A Partial Victory for Cigarette Companies

Cigarette companies and, hopefully, believers in liberty and limited government are applauding a federal court decision blocking the graphic images that were supposed to be put on cigarette packages next year. (I have written about this here.) But for some reason, this is viewed as a free speech issue but the other labeling requirements, like this for example: “Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy,” are not. In the case of the graphic images, it is thought that the government was just going too far. But this is what happens when you give the government an inch—it takes a mile. In a free society, and even under the Constitution, the feds have no authority to require certain labels on any product.

For what it’s worth, I’m not a smoker.

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1:27 pm on November 10, 2011