WASHINGTON - Legal Times reports that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down as unconstitutional the proposed graphic warning labels on packs of cigarettes to deter smoking.

"These inflammatory images and the provocatively-named hotline cannot rationally be viewed as pure attempts to convey information to consumers," Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote for the majority, adding, "They are unabashed attempts to evoke emotion (and perhaps embarrassment) and browbeat consumers into quitting."

Brown noted that the FDA "failed to present any data ?" much less the substantial evidence required under the (Administrative Procedure Act) ?" showing that enacting their proposed graphic warnings will accomplish the agency??s stated objective of reducing smoking rates."

Brown also said that nobody doubts that the government "can promote smoking cessation programs; can use shock, shame, and moral opprobrium to discourage people from becoming smokers; and can use its taxing and regulatory authority to make smoking economically prohibitive and socially onerous," writes Legal Times.

This case "raises novel questions about the scope of the government's authority to force the manufacturer of a product to go beyond making purely factual and accurate commercial disclosures and undermine its own economic interest," Brown wrote.

Senior Judge Raymond Randolph joined Brown in agreeing that the warning label images didn??t actually offer information on the health effects of smoking. Although the images aren??t "patently false," according to the judges, "they certainly do not impart purely factual, accurate, or uncontroversial information to consumers."

The warning label case could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.