Mississippi’s Ban on Medical Marijuana Ads Upheld by 5th Circuit

Mississippi’s near total restriction on medical marijuana advertising was upheld on Friday by the Fifth Circuit, which rejected a dispensary’s First Amendment challenge to the law.

Judge Jerry E. Smith, writing for a three-judge panel, said dispensaries don’t have free speech rights to advertise marijuana because the federal Controlled Substances Act still criminalizes the underlying commercial conduct.

“The Supremacy Clause means that the CSA is the law in Mississippi regardless of what state law might say,” Smith wrote for the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. “Marihuana is therefore illegal in Mississippi, and the state faces no constitutional ...