Opinion ID: 283109
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The authority for the cigarette ruling in particular

Text: 62 Thus, in the context of the Communications Act as it has long been understood, we do not think that public interest rulings relating to specific program content invariably amount to 'censorship' within the meaning of the Act. 57 However, there is high risk that such rulings will reflect the Commission's selection among tastes, opinions, and value judgments, rather than a recognizable public interest. Especially with First Amendment issues lurking in the near background, the 'public interest' is too vague a criterion for administrative action unless it is narrowed by definable standards. 58 63 The ruling before us neither forbids nor requires the publication of any specific material. But as an extension of the fairness doctrine it is an unusual limitation of the licensee's discretion. And as an independent public interest ruling it requires independent support. We cannot uphold it merely on the ground that it may reasonably be thought to serve the public interest. 64 Whatever else it may mean, however, we think the public interest indisputably includes the public health. 59 There is perhaps a broader public consensus on that value, and also on its core meaning, than on any other likely component of the public interest. The power to protect the public health lies at the heart of the states' police power. It has sustained many of the most drastic exercises of that power, including quarantines, condemnations, civil commitments, and compulsory vaccinations. Likewise, public health concerns now support a sizable portion of the civilian federal bureaucracy. The public health has in effect become a kind of basic law, both justifying new extensions of old powers and evoking the legitimate concern of government wherever its regulatory power otherwise extends. 65 The Radio Commission, predecessor to the FCC, assumed with judicial approval and without question that broadcasting of specious medical information was not in the public interest. 60 In the Communications Act of 1934, Congress transferred the Radio Commission's authority to license in the 'public interest, convenience and necessity' to the FCC, 61 which has also ruled specific controversial health claims to be not in the public interest. 62 Given the premise that the 'public interest' may include some of the content as well as the technical quality of broadcasting, we are satisfied that it includes the public health. But were there any initial doubt, in the absence of evidence to the contrary we think Congress must be deemed to have acquiesced in the determinations to that effect of both Commissions on a matter of such basic and universally recognized importance. 66 The public health standard removes much of the vagueness and over-breadth attending the standard of the public interest. But we are not prepared to say that the Commission is authorized to condemn every broadcast which might, without arbitrariness or caprice, be thought to pose some danger to the public health. Even the relatively precise concept of the public health is murky at the fringes, and in some cases what is concededly optimal health may be a less important public value than other conflicting interests. Finally, the Commission itself has no special expertise to make it the appropriate arbiter of controversies over whether particular broadcasting is dangerous to health. 67 But the ruling on cigarette advertising is vulnerable to none of these objections against a broad mandate to the Commission to consider the public health. 63 The danger cigarettes may pose to health is, among others, a danger to life itself. As the Commission emphasized, it is a danger inherent in the normal use of the product, not one merely associated with its abuse or dependent on intervening fortuitous events. It threatens a substantial body of the population, not merely a peculiarly susceptible fringe group. Moreover, the danger, though not established beyond all doubt, is documented by a compelling cumulation of statistical evidence. The only member of the Commission to express doubts about the validity of its ruling had no doubts about the validity of its premise that, in all probability, cigarettes are dangerous to health: 64 68 Cigarette smoking is a substantial hazard to the health of those who smoke which increases both with the number of cigarettes smoked and with the youthfulness when smoking is started. Cigarette smoking increases both the likelihood of the occurrence and the seriousness of the consequences of various types of cancer, of cardiovascular failures and of numerous other pathologies of smokers. These conclusions are established by overwhelming scientific evidence, by the findings of Government agencies, and by Congressional reports and statute.    The evidence on this subject is not conclusive, but scientific evidence is never conclusive. All scientific conclusions are probablistic    Furthermore, law does not and cannot demand conclusive proof. Even in a capital case, the law requires only proof beyond a reasonable doubt.    The evidence as to the dangers of cigarette smoking to the smoker is clearly beyond a mere preponderance and approaches proof beyond a reasonable doubt. 65 69 Finally, the Commission expressly refused to rely on any scientific expertise of its own. 66 Instead, it took the word of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee, 67 whose findings had already been adopted in substance by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 68 the Federal Trade Commission, 69 and the Senate Commerce Committee, 70 and had in addition been recognized and acted upon by Congress itself in the Cigarette Labeling Act. 70 In these circumstances, the Commission could reasonably determine that news broadcasts, private and governmental educational programs, the information provided by other media, and the prescribed warnings on each cigarette pack, inadequately inform the public of the extent to which its life and health are most probably in jeopardy. The mere fact that information is available, or even that it is actually heard or read, does not mean that it is effectively understood. A man who hears a hundred 'yeses' for each 'no,' when the actual odds lie heavily the other way, cannot be realistically deemed adequately informed. Moreover, since cigarette smoking is psychologically addicting, the confirmed smoker is likely to be relatively unreceptive to information about its dangers; his hearing is dulled by his appetite. And since it is so much harder to stop than not to start, it is crucial that an accurate picture be communicated to those who have not yet begun. 71 Thus, as a public health measure addressed to a unique danger authenticated by official and congressional action, the cigarette ruling is not invalid on account of its unusual particularity. It is in fact the product singled out for special treatment which justifies the action taken. In view of the potentially grave consequences of a decision of continue-- or above all to start-- smoking, we think it was not an abuse of discretion for the Commission to attempt to insure not only that the negative view be heard, but that it be heard repeatedly. The Commission has made no effort to dictate the content of the required anti-cigarette broadcasts. It has emphasized that the responsibility for content, source, specific volume, and precise timing rests with the good faith discretion of the licensee. 71 72 The cigarette ruling does not convert the Commission into either a censor or a big brother. But we emphasize that our cautious approval of this particular decision does not license the Commission to scan the airwaves for offensive material with no more discriminating a lens than the 'public interest' or even the 'public health.'