WASHINGTON—On Friday, a Mississippi medical cannabis dispensary owner asked the United States Supreme Court to hear his case challenging the state’s ban on advertising legal medical cannabis businesses. Tru Source Medical Cannabis owner Clarence Cocroft and his attorneys from the Institute for Justice (IJ) filed the petition with the high court after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban last November.
“Mississippi cannot simultaneously create an entire legal marketplace for an industry and then turn around and use an unenforced federal law to prevent those businesses from advertising their state-legal products,” said IJ Senior Attorney Ari Bargil. “If a business is legal, then the business owner has a First Amendment right to speak truthfully about his or her business.”
In 2022, Mississippi’s law legalizing adult medical marijuana went into effect, after passing with 69% of the vote two years earlier. Clarence then opened Tru Source and planned to use the four billboards he owns to advertise his new business. However, as part of legalization, the Mississippi Department of Health (DOH) was given broad authority to regulate essentially all forms of advertising other than the placement of signs on the dispensary’s property and the listing of basic information on the dispensary’s website. DOH has taken this discretion to the extreme by blocking dispensaries from “advertising and marketing in any media,” including newspapers, television, magazines, social media, billboard, and email lists.
“Because of these regulations, I cannot use my own billboards to advertise my own business or inform potential customers about Mississippi’s medical marijuana program,” said Clarence. “Advertising is particularly important for my business because it is tucked away in an industrial park without any real foot or vehicle traffic.”
Instead of using his billboards to advertise his own business, Clarence is forced to rent them out to other businesses, such as the local casino.
“An outright ban on all medical cannabis advertising serves no legitimate public purpose,” said IJ Attorney Katrin Marquez. “Mississippi, and other states with legal medical marijuana, already have laws that prevent dispensaries from saying untruthful things about their products or targeting advertising toward children.”
Other neighboring states with legal medical marijuana programs impose similar restrictions on advertising. Arkansas prohibits dispensaries from advertising their products “through any public medium” to the general public and Alabama essentially prohibits public advertising. However, other states with legal medical marijuana impose much less burdensome restrictions than Mississippi and its neighbors.