Cigarette Retailers Must Now Post “Corrective Signs” Detailing Smoking Dangers

Starting this month, tobacco companies are required to begin installing “eye-catching signs telling the public the truth about the deadly consequences of cigarette smoking” in approximately 220,000 stores that sell cigarettes in the US, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network reported in a press release.¹

As required by a December 2022 federal court order, the installation of these “corrective signs” must occur between July 1 and September 30. Signs must be on display until June 30, 2025. In areas with a significant Spanish-speaking population, the signs must be posted in English and Spanish.^1,2

A “tip line” will also be established to assist compliance monitoring by independent auditing, which is being subsidized by the cigarette companies who were found guilty of having “misled the public for decades about the health risks of smoking,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton in a press release issued by the US Department of Justice following the ruling.²

The corrective signs must provide accurate information about the adverse health effects of smoking and secondhand smoke, the addictive nature of both smoking and nicotine, and the lack of significant health benefit associated with using light/low tar cigarettes vs regular cigarettes, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which was among the public health groups that joined together to file a motion asking for “strong remedies” to be levied against the cigarette companies. Other public health groups joining in the motion were the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, and National African American Tobacco Prevention Network.³

Defendants in the civil racketeering lawsuit, which was filed in 1999 and tried 2004-2005, include Altria, Philip Morris USA, RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company, and ITG Brands. According to the US Department of Justice, “the court found that the cigarette companies had defrauded consumers about the health dangers associated with cigarette smoking.”²

The requirement that defendants place corrective signage in retail stores selling cigarettes is “the last of several corrective remedies ordered by the court” and is designed to “ensure that consumers know the true dangers of the smoking products they may consider purchasing,” according to the Department of Justice press release.²

Examples of the corrective signs are posted on the US Department of Justice website.

“The corrective statements are powerful reminders that tobacco’s horrific toll is no accident” and that “the tobacco companies have engaged in massive deception and wrongdoing,” stated the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network press release regarding the signs.¹

According to the judge’s decision in this case, “Over the course of more than 50 years, Defendants lied, misrepresented, and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as ‘replacement smokers,’ about the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke, they suppressed research, they destroyed documents, they manipulated the use of nicotine so as to increase and perpetuate addiction, they distorted the truth about low tar and light cigarettes so as to discourage smokers from quitting, and they abused the legal system in order to achieve their goal — to make money with little, if any, regard for individual illness and suffering, soaring health costs, or the integrity of the legal system.”¹