WASHINGTON—Today, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging Mississippi’s near-total ban on medical marijuana advertising, brought by Tru Source Medical Cannabis owner Clarence Cocroft II and his attorneys from the Institute for Justice (IJ). 

“We’re disappointed that the Court declined to hear this case and make it clear that if a product is legal to sell, then it is legal to advertise,” said IJ Senior Attorney Ari Bargil. “The First Amendment protects the right of people to speak truthfully about their legal businesses. Mississippi has created an entire legal marketplace permitting the sale of medical marijuana, but it is censoring state-licensed dispensaries who want to talk about it.” 

Mississippi’s law legalizing medical cannabis went into effect in 2022, after nearly 70 percent of voters approved the measure two years earlier. Clarence then used his business experience and science background to open Tru Source in April 2023. He thought educating the public about Mississippi’s medical cannabis program and finding customers would be easy—after all, he owns four billboards in the area. However, Clarence quickly learned that the law legalizing medical cannabis gives the Mississippi Department of Health (DOH) broad authority to regulate advertising. DOH has taken that authority to ban dispensaries from “advertising and marketing in any media.” This blanket ban, which is subject to only a handful of very narrow exceptions, effectively bars Clarence from communicating basic, truthful information about his dispensary—like where it is located and what his prices are. 

“Tru Source is tucked away in an industrial park with no foot traffic and hardly any vehicle traffic, so not being able to advertise has been truly detrimental to finding customers,” said Clarence. “I was hoping the Supreme Court would hear our case so my business could be treated just like any other legal business in the state of Mississippi.” 

“Even though the Supreme Court declined to hear this case, we remain committed to fighting battles to protect commercial and other forms of speech in courts throughout the country, so that every person who runs a legal business is able to talk truthfully about it,” said IJ President and Chief Counsel Scott Bullock.  

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To arrange interviews on this subject, journalists may contact Phillip Suderman, IJ’s Communications Project Manager, at [email protected] or (850) 376-4110. More information on the case is available at: https://ij.org/case/mississippi-advertising/