RJ Reynolds Tobacco filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday that seeks to invalidate a Seattle city ordinance and a county health board regulation that ban the distribution of free sample cigarettes.

The tobacco company contends that the ban violates its constitutional rights because the distribution of sample cigarettes is a type of advertising protected by freedom of speech provisions in the First Amendment.
"Sampling is important to RJR because, unlike other forms of advertising and promotion, sampling affords RJR an opportunity to talk one-on-one with adult smokers about its brands, and, by putting its brands directly into their hands, to guarantee that they will try its brands," the suit states.
The suit claims that the legal question had already been settled last summer by US District Judge Franklin Burgess of Tacoma, when he invalidated a state law banning promotional distribution of cigarettes in Washington. Burgess essentially reinstated an old state law that bans passing out sample cigarettes except where minors are not allowed, according to the suit.
RJR wants the court to declare the King County regulation and Seattle ordinance unconstitutional, and to find that a federal law that allows sampling pre-empts the ban. (pi)