Smoking and the First Amendment

On June 22, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law. For the first time, Congress had given the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to directly regulate tobacco products, with the aim of improving public health. And indeed, effective tobacco control would be a remarkable public health achievement — and might be possible if the law is allowed to stand. But on November 7, 2011, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary injunction blocking some of its key provisions as unconstitutional restrictions on commercial speech, and the battle seems likely to end up in the Supreme Court