## Facts

- Youngs Drug Products Corporation manufactured contraceptives and sought to expand marketing through unsolicited mailings to the public.
- The proposed mailings included: (1) an “informational pamphlet” discussing venereal disease and family planning while promoting Youngs’ products; (2) a promotional flyer included with monthly wholesaler statements; and (3) postcard advertisements describing products and offering coupons.
- A federal statute, 39 U.S.C. § 3001(e)(2), declared “nonmailable” any unsolicited advertisement “designed, adapted, or intended for preventing conception.”
- Postal officials notified Youngs that the proposed unsolicited mailings would violate § 3001(e)(2) and could be barred from the mails.
- Youngs sued for declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that applying the statute to its mailings violated the First Amendment.
- A three-judge federal district court enjoined enforcement of § 3001(e)(2) as applied to Youngs’ proposed mailings; the government took a direct appeal to the Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the proposed mailings were “commercial speech” when they combined product promotion with discussion of public issues such as family planning and venereal disease.
2. Whether § 3001(e)(2)’s prohibition on unsolicited contraceptive advertisements, as applied, violated the First Amendment under commercial-speech doctrine.
3. Whether asserted governmental interests (shielding recipients from offense and assisting parental control over children’s exposure) justified the breadth of the ban.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the injunction against enforcement of § 3001(e)(2) as applied to Youngs’ proposed mailings.
- The Court classified the mailings as commercial speech because they were advertisements, referred to specific products, and were economically motivated, even though they discussed public issues.
- The Court held the statute unconstitutional as applied because the prohibition was broader than necessary to serve the government’s asserted interests.

## Legal Principles

- Communications may be treated as commercial speech when they are (1) advertisements, (2) refer to specific products, and (3) are economically motivated; discussion of public issues within the same materials does not remove them from the commercial-speech category.
- Truthful advertising about lawful contraceptives is protected commercial speech and implicates strong interests in the free flow of information related to decisions about sexuality and reproduction.
- Offense to recipients is not a sufficient basis to suppress protected speech where recipients can avoid exposure by discarding the mail (“avert your eyes” principle).
- Protecting children cannot be pursued by broadly suppressing adult access to truthful information; the government may not restrict adult communications to only what is suitable for children.
- Under commercial-speech review, a blanket content-based ban on unsolicited contraceptive advertisements is invalid when it restricts substantially more speech than necessary to serve the asserted interests.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Youngs’ mixed informational-and-promotional mailings were commercial speech and that applying § 3001(e)(2) to bar unsolicited contraceptive advertisements in the mail violated the First Amendment because the statute’s sweeping prohibition was not sufficiently tailored to the government’s interests in preventing offense and assisting parental control.


Bolger v. Youngs Drug Prods. Corp., 463 U.S. 60 (1983)