## Facts

- Virginia law classified it as “unprofessional conduct” for a licensed pharmacist to publish or promote any prescription drug price or related discount or credit terms.
- Consumer organizations and individual consumers sued, alleging prescription drug prices varied among pharmacies and that access to price information was necessary for informed purchasing decisions, especially for low-income, ill, and elderly consumers.
- The plaintiffs challenged the law as a suppression of truthful information protected by the First Amendment as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
- A three-judge federal district court declared the statute unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement.
- The Virginia State Board of Pharmacy appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether consumers, as recipients of information, have standing to assert First Amendment protection for pharmacists’ dissemination of prescription drug price information.
2. Whether commercial speech proposing a lawful transaction is outside the First Amendment, permitting a state to impose a flat ban on truthful prescription drug price advertising.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment invalidating the statute.
- Consumers and consumer groups could assert First Amendment interests in receiving prescription drug price information.
- Commercial speech is not wholly excluded from First Amendment protection.
- A blanket prohibition on truthful, non-misleading advertising of lawful prescription drug prices violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The state’s asserted interest in maintaining professional standards did not justify keeping the public ignorant of lawful price terms offered by competing pharmacies.

## Legal Principles

- The First Amendment protects truthful, non-misleading commercial speech concerning lawful activity.
- Protection extends to both the speaker and the audience; recipients have a protected interest in receiving commercial information.
- A state may regulate commercial speech to prevent deception and may impose reasonable restrictions on the manner of advertising, but it may not completely suppress truthful information about lawful transactions based on disagreement with its effects.
- Content-based, total bans on truthful price advertising are constitutionally suspect, particularly where the speech is neither misleading nor related to illegal conduct.

## Conclusion

The Court recognized constitutional protection for truthful commercial advertising and held that Virginia could not preserve pharmacy “professionalism” by imposing a total ban on advertising prescription drug prices, because the First Amendment protects the public’s ability to receive accurate price information about lawful products.


Va. State Bd. of Pharmacy v. Va. Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748 (1976)