WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court won’t hear a challenge to a federal requirement that cigarette packages and advertising include graphic images demonstrating the effects of smoking.

The high court declined to hear the case in a short written order handed down Monday.

Tobacco company R.J. Reynolds appealed to the high court after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the warnings do not violate the First Amendment.

They include pictures of smoke-damaged lungs, feet blackened by diminished blood flow and a picture of a woman with a large cancerous growth on her neck.

The company argued the final image, for example, was misleading because a patient would likely go to the doctor before a growth reached that size. — Associated Press