June 1, 2009
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.
