Getting rid of pharma ads is going to be a first amendment issue, and should be struck down, as it likely will. Creating an environment where the goverment can single out who the first amendment does and doesn't apply to is far far worse than pharma advertising.
The first amendment doesn't apply as broadly to commercial speech as it does normal speech. There's already restrictions placed on it and a framework for deciding if further restrictions would be acceptable.
> The Central Hudson test has a threshold prong – does the speech concern lawful activity and is it non-misleading. If it meets these requirements, then there are three other prongs:
> The government must have a substantial interest.
> The regulation must directly and materially advance the government’s substantial interest.
> The regulation must be narrowly tailored.
It would seem like restricting medical ads would be within the realms of constitutionally acceptable government power.
If the Pharma industry as it exists, today could exist without federal government regulation, then I think you might have a point.
The government is so intertwined in the Pharma industry, that no I don’t really see a 1A problem here.
Sparing misused, and completely incorrect fire in a theater, tropes, there is a good point we made that freedom of speech does not extend to unnecessarily dangerous things. Remind me which company has received the largest criminal fine in history (Pfizer).
I just don’t think you’re gonna have a lot of sympathy for oh poor Pharma companies and their lack of free speech.
No. I don't think the fractal what ifs concerned them.
Do you think the original intention of the first amendment was to have a scattered subjective enforcement based on prevailing popular winds at any given time?
