Opinion ID: 283109
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the cigarette labeling act

Text: 29 We are confronted at the outset by the contention that the Commission's action is precluded by the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965. 13 That Act requires cigarette manufacturers and importers to print on each pack the warning 'Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health' and provides that 30 no statement relating to smoking and health shall be required in the advertising of any cigarettes the packages of which are labeled in conformity with the provisions of this Act. 14 31 Since the Commission's ruling does not require the inclusion of any 'statement    in the advertising of any cigarettes,' but rather directs stations which advertise cigarettes to present 'the other side' each week, it does not violate the letter of the Act. 32 But petitioners content that, though Congress said only 'no statement shall be required    in    advertising,' it meant to forbid any regulation addressed to the smoking-health problem except the Federal Trade Commission's specifically exempted power to police false and misleading advertising. 15 In support of this proposition, they refer us primarily to the Act's Declaration of Policy, in which Congress asserts a purpose to 33 establish a comprehensive Federal program to deal with cigarette labeling and advertising with respect to any relationship between smoking and health, whereby-- (1) the public may be adequately informed that cigarette smoking may be hazardous to health by inclusion of a warning to that effect on each package of cigarettes; and 34 (2) commerce and the national economy may be (A) protected to the maximum extent consistent with this declared policy and (B) not impeded by diverse, nonuniform, and confusing cigarette labeling and advertising regulations with respect to any relationship between smoking and health. 16 35 From this declaration and from assorted snippets of legislative history, they conclude that Congress has definitively balanced the conflicting interests of the health of the public and the health of the economy and determined-- in effect as a matter of law-- that the public will be 'adequately informed' on the smoking-and-health issue until July, 1969, 17 without any further governmental requirements. 36 The Commission, on the other hand, thought its ruling implemented a congressional policy of promoting intensive smoker-education during the life of the Act as an alternative to the 'drastic step' of requiring warnings in every cigarette advertisement. Its opinion cites the express reliance in both House and Senate Reports on the anti-smoking campaigns of public and private groups as a reason for deferring stronger Congressional action. 18 And it notes that Congress itself appropriated $2 million to fund the extensive informational activities in this area of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. 19 37 This evidence does not establish unequivocally that Congress did not intend to rely exclusively on such non-coercive educational efforts to inform the public. Congress expressed no purpose in the Act of informig the public of anything except the bare fact that 'cigarette smoking may be hazardous to health.' Its prescribed warnings to that much and no more. They merely flash danger signals without either particularizing the danger or providing facts on which it may be appraised. 38 But the anti-smoking campaigns are scarcely so pervasive or so well-funded that additional information could be regarded as mere surfeit. Accordingly, if we are to adopt petitioners' analysis, we must conclude that Congress legislated to curtail the potential flow of information lest the public learn too much about the hazards of smoking for the good of the tobacco industry and the economy. We are loathe to impute such a purpose to Congress absent a clear expression. Where a controversial issue with potentially grave consequences is left to each individual to decide for himself, the need for an abundant and ready supply of relevant information is too obvious to need belaboring. 39 In the present case we find no such clear expression of restrictive intent. On the contrary, there are positive indications that Congress's 'comprehensive program' was directed at the relatively narrow specific issue of regulation of 'cigarette labeling and advertising.' The Act was in fact passed in response to a pending Federal Trade Commission rule which would have required warnings both on packages and in all advertising. 20 Subjected to competing pressures and uncertain of the full extent of the health hazard, Congress apparently settled on half of the FTC's proposed loaf, shelved the other half for four years, 21 and expressly disclaimed any intent to affect other FTC policies or powers. 22 Nothing in the Act indicates that Congress had any intent at all with respect to other types of regulation by other agencies-- much less that it specifically meant to foreclose all such regulation. 23 If it meant to do anything so dramatic, it might reasonably be expected to have said so directly-- especially where it was careful to include a section entitled 'Preemption' specifically forbidding designated types of regulatory action. 24 40 In short, we think the Cigarette Labeling Act represents the balance drawn between the narrow purpose of warning the public 'that cigarette smoking may be hazardous to health' and the interests of the economy. In that reckoning, the question of the public's need for information about the nature, extent, and certainty of the danger was left out of the scales, and so is left unaffected, except incidentally, by the result. Congress may reasonably have concluded that a warning on each pack was adequate warning. 25 It surely did not think the warnings were themselves adequate information. And we find no sufficiently persuasive evidence that Congress hoped to impede the flow of adequate information for fear that, if the public knew all the facts, too many of them would stop smoking. 26 41 This relatively narrow reading of the Act is not in conflict with its declared objective of protecting commerce and the national economy against 'diverse, nonuniform, and confusing cigarette labeling and advertising regulations with respect to any relationship between smoking and health.' 27 Congress patently did not want cigarette manufacturers harassed by conflicting affirmative requirements with respect to the content of their advertising. In addition, it evidently decided that the case against smoking was not yet so overwhelming as to warrant compelling the cigarette companies to dig their own graves by neutralizing their own advertising messages. 28 Even if these policies implicitly preempt regulations of advertising substantially equivalent to the FTC's proposed required warnings, 29 they do not exclude a single, uniform regulation of broadcasters designed to inform the public. 42