Judge Blocks Feds on Requirement for Graphic Images on Cigarette Packages [VIDEO]

A federal judge on Monday blocked a federal regulation imposed on the tobacco industry to put graphic images on cigarette packages that included dead and diseased smokers.

(Click here for the full AP Story)

Nine graphic images were approved by the Food and Drug Administration this past June to show the potential risks of using tobacco products and District Judge Richard Leon said the images go further than trying to show risk and display facts, but to push an agenda.

The Nine Approved Images

1. A color image of a person smoking a cigarette through his throat by way of tracheotomy.
2. A plume of smoke covering an infant receiving a mother's kiss.
3. An image of a pair of diseased lungs compared to what healthy lungs should look like.
4. A person affected with cancerous lesions due to tobacco use.
5. An image of a man with a oxygen mask on.
6. A corpse on a table with post-autopsy chest staples and incisions.
7. A woman weeping.
8. A premature baby in an incubator.
9. A man wearing a shirt with the "No Smoking" symbol with the words "I quit" on the image.

I remember such a proposal that a wacky, Birkenstock wearing Senator from Vermont supported in the movie Thank You for Smoking. If you haven't read the book by Christopher Buckley, son of conservative hero William F. Buckley, then give it a read and also watch the movie where Tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor battles the anti-smoking lobby and Senator Ortolan Finistirre to prevent graphic images and a skull and cross bones placed on cigarette packaging.

I am a firm believer that if someone doesn't know smoking increases your chances of getting cancer that they should never be allowed to procreate. How many times in grade school were we told as students that people who smoked were evil and bad? I am waiting for the graphic images of a morbidly obese people being removed from their house on a package of chips or a man beating his wife on a bottle of bourbon.

Sound ridiculous? This is the problem with our society. We have to be told what is good and what is bad for us because we have become a group of people who refuse to think.