A federal judge in Texas has blocked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from enforcing a looming requirement that cigarette packages and advertisements contain graphic warnings illustrating the health risks of smoking, reported Reuters. 

On Monday, U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker in Tyler, Texas, sided with tobacco companies, ruling that the “FDA went beyond its authority by requiring packaging and advertising to contain 11 specific warnings.” 

The judge said those warnings go above and beyond the nine that Congress specified when it passed the Tobacco Control Act in 2009, which gave the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products and mandated adoption of the graphic warnings. 

The 11 graphic warnings include depictions of how smoking can cause bladder, head and neck cancer; fatal lung disease; stunted fetal growth during pregnancy; cataracts; and type 2 diabetes. 

According to Reuters, the FDA argued the law gave it the authority to adjust the format, type and text of any of the required labels. But Barker said that power was limited, noting that even if the FDA was allowed to rewrite the nine warnings, it could not add two extra ones. 

The FDA had been planning to enforce the rule beginning February 2025. The judge has now delayed the rule’s effective date pending further litigation. 

As part of the FDA rule, retailers that create or produce their own cigarette advertisements are required to submit a plan to the FDA, however, with the rule being blocked, those requirements will not be due until further action by the courts. 

“The decision marked the second time Barker has blocked the FDA’s warning label rule. In 2022, the judge concluded the requirement violated the companies’ speech rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment,” wrote Reuters. 

That decision was then reversed by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March, and the U.S. Supreme Court in November declined to hear the tobacco companies’ appeal.