The most troublesome proposals stem from a potentially overbroad effort to regulate the content of advertising, thus infringing the rights of the industry to promote a lawful product.

Other lawful products, notably cigarettes, have been the subject of lawsuits.

If the state can sue large businesses because a lawful product used lawfully and according to law gives offense, what can't the state sue about?

These proposals would keep cigarettes, a lawful product, available to adults but not to children.

That left the door open for the Court to uphold restrictions on the advertising of other lawful products, like tobacco.

The Court extended First Amendment protection to truthful advertising of lawful products 20 years ago.

A First Amendment lawyer, Floyd Abrams, is representing the tobacco companies in the case, contending requiring graphic warning labels on a lawful product cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny.

Some, like New York, prohibit a ban against people who use a "lawful product," which tobacco is.

That analysis, which ratified the Court's current approach to commercial speech, left the door open for the Court to uphold, in future cases, restrictions on the advertising of other lawful products, like tobacco.

The fictitious firm was built around and by the Mafia; Shook, Hardy's principal clients sell an entirely lawful product, and it has never been charged with criminal conduct.