ACLU Letter to Senate on The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act

We are writing on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to express our concern over the advertising restrictions contained in S. 982, The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (hereinafter the ‘2009 Tobacco Control Bill’). The ACLU is America’s largest and oldest civil liberties organization, having over half a million members, countless additional activists and supporters, and 53 affiliates nationwide. We last commented on the issue of tobacco advertising regulation when S. 2626, the Youth Smoking Prevention and Public Health Protection Act of 2002 (hereinafter the ‘2002 Youth Smoking Bill’), was introduced during the 107th Congress. As in 2002, we continue to believe that the advertising restrictions in this year’s bill are not drawn narrowly to achieve the stated public purpose and, as such, fail to comply with the free speech protections of the First Amendment. In the absence of a much more substantial narrowing of the advertising restrictions in a manner directly tied to the goal of reducing youth smoking, we urge the removal of the advertising restrictions set forth in Section 102 of the bill. It is our understanding that such an amendment is likely to be offered when the bill comes to the floor for consideration and we urge you to support it.