Cigarette companies will begin running TV and newspaper adverts on Sunday, to apologise to the public for lying about the dangers of smoking.
In the court-mandated adverts, the firms will also tell the truth about their misleading design of cigarettes to make them more addictive.
The adverts will run in the United States where the American government sued tobacco giants including Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, an affiliate of the British American Tobacco.
They will touch on five areas in which the companies have been deliberately been cheating consumers.
They include the dangers of "low tar, light, ultra light, mild and natural" cigarettes, which were deceptively marketed as less harmful than regular cigarettes.
The US companies must also publish the truth about adverse effects of secondhand smoke, the addictive nature of smoking and nicotine, adverse health effects of smoking and manipulation of cigarette design and composition to ensure optimum nicotine delivery.
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'Many truths about smoking to be revealed'
All this dates back to 1999, when the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against tobacco giants like Philip Morris and BAT for lying to the public about how smoking affects health.
In July 2005, Judge Kessler granted a motion by several public health groups to intervene in the case in order to argue for strong remedies. These groups include the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, an affiliate of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and the American Cancer Society.
Judge Gladys Kessler finally ordered the advertising campaign in 2006. She found the tobacco companies have violated civil racketeering laws (RICO).
She said: "Their continuing misconduct misleads consumers in order to maximise defendants' revenues by recruiting new smokers (the majority of whom are under the age of 18), preventing current smokers from quitting, thereby sustaining the industry."
The tobacco companies lodged an appeal after the other and exhausted all options earlier this year.
The companies must now publish full-page ads in the editions of 35 newspapers every week for the next year.
They must also air the apologies and corrections on prime time TV spots on CBS, ABC, and NBC five times per week for the next year.
Through the ads, people will hear many truths about the risks of smoking. These include "There is no safe cigarette", "Cigarette companies intentionally designed cigarettes with enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction" and "When you smoke, the nicotine actually changes your brain - that’s why quitting is so hard".
They also must publish the same "corrective statements" on their websites and attach an "outsert" with "corrective statements" on a predetermined number of cigarette packs three times per year.
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'Innocent Kenyans lured'
The case is of interest to Kenya where cigarette makers have used such misleading marketing tags for decades.
Some of the deceptive statements such as "low tar, light, ultra light and mild" have been used widely in the country.
The Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance praised the US ruling and urged the Kenyan government to pursue a similar lawsuit.
"Such terms have been used to lure many innocent Kenyans into smoking, and yet we know half of all smokers eventually are killed by tobacco-related diseases," said KETCA chairman
Joel Gitali.
Though the ads come at a time when tobacco companies, such Philip Morris International, are trying to rebrand as part of the solution to the global tobacco epidemic, the companies continue to be the biggest obstacle to combating use around the world.