‘Low tar,’ ‘light’ tobacco labeling banned overseas

A federal judge barred tobacco companies from pitching cigarettes overseas as products that are “low tar” and “light.”

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled Aug. 17 that the nation’s top cigarette makers stop using terms such as “light” on their products. After the decision, the companies asked Kessler to allow them to use the marketing overseas.

There is no justification for concluding that Congress intended to allow the tobacco companies “to tell the rest of the world that ‘low tar/light’ cigarettes are less harmful to health when they are prohibited from making such fraudulent representations to the American public,” Kessler wrote.