Jump to full article: Vallejo (CA) Times-Herald, 2009-09-02
Intro: As a sponsor of the annual Relay for Life, and as a defender of the First Amendment, we can only express shock and disgust that the makers of a product responsible for millions of cancer deaths feel their free speech rights are being violated.
But that's what two of the nation's three largest tobacco companies and several smaller ones are claiming in a lawsuit against a new law regulating cigarette marketing.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Lorillard Inc. are claiming that new federal regulations will somehow lead to fewer sales to their already hooked customers. . . .
Here's the amusing part - if one can exist in a discussion of a product that causes 400,000 deaths a year - the law also allegedly limits tobacco companies from "making truthful statements about their products in scientific, public policy and political debates."
For decades, tobacco companies have had the freedom of speech to make truthful statements, but chose instead to lie to the American public. Millions have perished as a result. . . .
No requirement exists in the First Amendment to tell the truth, so the tobacco companies may have some legal grounds when they contend that their free speech rights are being robbed.
But we wonder what the millions of cancer victims would say if they still had the freedom of speech that was robbed from them.
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