Stores will have to post cigarette warning signs — or face consequences

Retailers who sell cigarettes are going to have to make way for some new signs.

The Justice Department, together with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has issued an order that requires major cigarette companies to display signs at retail stores warning of the adverse health effects of smoking.  

Under the order, defendants Altria, Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and four cigarette brands owned by ITG are required to display signs in retail stores featuring corrective statements about the health effects and addictiveness of smoking. The order requires the brands to hang the signs for about two years.

The order is scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2023, and gives defendants three months to post the required statements. It includes specific consequences for retailers who fail to properly display the corrective statements after warnings and opportunities to fix.

The order resolves the government’s long-running lawsuit against the largest U.S. cigarette companies. The lawsuit was filed in 1999 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.  It is the last of several corrective remedies ordered by the court.

“Today’s resolution implements the last remedy of this litigation to ensure that consumers know the true dangers of the smoking products they may consider purchasing,” stated Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta.

There are approximately 300,000 U.S. retail locations that sell cigarettes. The order will apply to about 200,000 of the retailers that have retail merchandising agreements with the cigarette companies (named at top of article) that allow the companies to control how their cigarettes are displayed at the stores. The companies will have to amend their retailer contracts, and then manufacture and distribute the required signs within six months of the order’s start date.

“Cigarette companies misled the public for decades about the health risks of smoking and were ordered by a federal court to implement a series of corrective measures,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “All of these measures have been implemented, except one—the display of corrective statements in retail stores that sell cigarettes. Today’s order requiring implementation of that remaining remedy is a major achievement that will educate American consumers and save lives.”

The signs are designed to be eye-catching and provide truthful information to consumers relating to the adverse health effects of smoking, the Justice Department said. The statements include, among other things, that: 

• Smoking cigarettes causes numerous diseases and on average 1,200 American deaths every day;
• The nicotine in cigarettes is highly addictive and cigarettes have been designed to create and sustain addiction; and
• So-called light, low-tar and natural cigarettes are just as harmful as regular cigarettes.

“We know that tobacco product marketing in retail stores influences young people to start using tobacco, increases tobacco product consumption, and makes it harder for people to quit,” said director Deirdre Lawrence Kittner of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office on Smoking and Health. “These statements will be an important complement to evidence-based strategies that prevent and reduce commercial tobacco use—the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the United States.”

The required signs will be in both English and Spanish, with the latter required in geographic areas with significant Spanish-speaking populations. The order also implements certain measures designed to discourage noncompliance, including specific consequences for retailers who fail to properly display the corrective statements after warnings and opportunities to cure.   

For more information about the Consumer Protection Branch and its enforcement efforts, visit its website at justice.gov/civil/consumer-protection-branch.