ACLU, Marijuana Rights Groups Sue U.S. Over Ads

The marijuana reform groups said they tried to place an advertisement with Washington, D.C.'s mass transit authority, but it was turned down because of a law that took effect Feb. 2, which says public transit systems can lose their federal funding if they accept such ads.

"The government does not want the public to know how badly our drug policy has failed, so it is trying to silence Americans who oppose the war on drugs," Graham Boyd, director of the ACLU Drug Policy Litigation Project, said at a news conference to announce the suit.

"Fortunately, the First Amendment clearly prohibits this kind of blatant viewpoint-based censorship," Boyd said.

The suit names Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and alleges that the new law, included in the 2004 federal spending bill, violates the Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of the right to free speech.

A spokesman for Mineta declined to comment.

Besides the ACLU, other plaintiffs are Change the Climate, Inc., Marijuana Policy Project and Drug Policy Alliance, all of which advocate changing U.S. laws governing marijuana.

The ad they sought to place with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority shows a crowd of typical urban commuters, dressed for work, standing behind prison bars. The headline on the ad reads: "Marijuana laws waste billions of taxpayer dollars to lock up non-violent Americans."

The marijuana reform groups said the government can withhold a total of $3.1 billion from local transit authorities if they accept and display ads that question the war on drugs.

"Apparently, the message that marijuana prohibition has failed is so powerful that the federal government has resorted to silencing those who wish to convey it," said Steve Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project.

Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance said the U.S. government has spent "over a billion dollars in public money" on a media campaign to promote the war on drugs.

Besides Mineta, the Washington transit authority is listed as a defendant in the suit. The plaintiffs acknowledged the authority was compelled by the new law to refuse to accept their advertisement.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4388161