Top court rejects challenge to anti-smoking ads

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court rejected on
Tuesday a free-speech challenge by two tobacco companies over
California’s anti-smoking advertisements paid for by taxes on
cigarettes.

Reynolds American Inc.’s R.J. Reynolds Tobacco unit and
Loews Corp.’s Lorillard Tobacco unit had argued the state’s ads
were unconstitutional because the tobacco companies were being
forced to pay for the advertisements that criticize the
industry.

Under California’s Proposition 99, which voters approved in
1988, the state imposes a 25-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes and
uses the funds for smoking prevention and education efforts.
The state spends about $25 million a year on the
advertisements.

In one commercial, children were shown playing in a
schoolyard, looking up while cigarettes rain down on them from
the sky. At the end, a narrator says, “The tobacco industry:
how low will they go to make a profit?”

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit by the tobacco
companies in a decision upheld by a U.S. appeals court based in
San Francisco. The appeals court ruled that the state’s ads did
not violate the free-speech rights of the companies.

Appealing to the Supreme Court, the companies said the
First Amendment prohibits the government from imposing a tax
that applies “solely to a discrete disfavored group” and then
using the money to fund government speech attacking the same
group that is subject to the tax.

The high court denied the appeal without any comment or
recorded dissent.