Product Warnings, Debiasing, and Free Speech: The Case of Tobacco Regulation

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 requires the display of graphic health warnings on cigarette advertising and packaging in the United States. Debates over the permissibility of these new mandated health warnings under the unusually broad Free Speech Clause of the United States Constitution have paid insufficient attention to empirical evidence – to be presented in this article – of the warnings' salutary effects in reducing consumers' factual misperceptions about smoking risks. Although such empirical evidence does not, by itself, settle the First Amendment debate, this evidence warrants more attention in that debate than it has received to date.