UPDATE 

John, 

Starting this month, the major U.S. tobacco companies must begin to post eye-catching signs telling the public the truth about the deadly consequences of cigarette smoking at about 220,000 retail stores across the nation that sell cigarettes.

This is a huge victory for public health!

How did this happen?

The Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund – along with our partners and the U.S. Department of Justice – fought the tobacco industry in court for 16 years. And we won.

Under a federal court order, the signs will be installed near cigarette displays in these stores between July 1 and September 30 and must be displayed until June 30, 2025. This is a long-overdue step in holding the tobacco industry accountable for decades of lies that led to addiction, disease and premature death for millions of people.

The order applies to tobacco companies Altria and its Philip Morris USA subsidiary, R.J. Reynolds and ITG Brands.

The signs are the final step in implementing the “corrective statements” the tobacco companies were first ordered to make in 2006, when U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler issued a landmark judgment that these companies violated civil racketeering laws and lied to the public for decades about the health risks and addictiveness of cigarettes and their marketing to children.

One of the signs that tobacco companies must place next to their products. See more >>

WHY THIS MATTERS

These signs will tell the public the truth about the health harms of smoking and secondhand smoke, the addictiveness of smoking and nicotine, and the industry’s manipulation of cigarettes to make them more addictive. Critically, this truthful information will be provided to consumers at the point where they are making decisions whether to purchase cigarettes.

The corrective statements are powerful reminders that tobacco’s horrific toll is no accident. It stems directly from the tobacco industry’s deceptive and illegal practices.

BIG TOBACCO HASN'T CHANGED

As Judge Kessler found in her nearly 1,700-page final opinion, “The evidence in this case clearly establishes that Defendants have not ceased engaging in unlawful activity... Their continuing conduct misleads consumers in order to maximize Defendants’ revenues by recruiting new smokers (the majority of whom are under the age of 18), preventing current smokers from quitting, and thereby sustaining the industry.”

Today, Altria and Reynolds are waging deceptive campaigns claiming that they have changed despite the fact they continue to spend billions to market cigarettes and aggressively fight policies that actually reduce smoking.

The latest examples:

• They are fighting federal, state and local efforts to end the sale of menthol cigarettes – products that make it easier for kids to start smoking and harder for smokers to quit and that these companies have intentionally marketed to Black communities at enormous cost in health and lives.
  
  
• They are fighting proposed graphic warnings on cigarette packs in the U.S. – a best-practice policy adopted by over 125 countries around the world.
  
  
• They are fighting to defeat and roll back statewide smoke-free laws, especially for hospitality workplaces, thereby unfairly endangering the health of a workforce that employs a high percentage of women and people of color.

With support from advocates like you, we will continue to expose Big Tobacco’s lies and wrongdoing. And we’ll keep fighting for real solutions that protect kids and save lives.

Learn more about this court case and our legal work >>

Thanks for standing with us,

Support this critical work by making a contribution today: