Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council

Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 11, 1975 Decided May 24, 1976
Full case name	Virginia State Board of Pharmacy, et al. v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Incorporated, et al.
Citations	425 U.S. 748 (more) 96 S. Ct. 1817; 48 L. Ed. 2d 346; 1976 U.S. LEXIS 55; 1976-1 Trade Cas. (CCH) P60,930; 1 Media L. Rep. 1930
Prior history	On appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
Holding
States cannot limit consumer access to information about prescription drug prices.
Court membership
Case opinions
Majority	Blackmun, joined by Burger, Brennan, Stewart, White, Marshall, Powell
Concurrence	Burger
Concurrence	Stewart
Dissent	Rehnquist
Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I

Virginia State Pharmacy Board v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that a state could not limit pharmacists’ right to provide information about prescription drug prices. This was an important case in determining the application of the First Amendment to commercial speech.

The Commonwealth of Virginia had a statute which prohibited pharmacists from advertising prescription drug prices, providing that those who did would be guilty of “unprofessional conduct”. Drug prices varied throughout the state, as the District Court found. The law was challenged by an individual consumer and consumer groups, who brought suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.Public Citizen's Litigation Group argued and won the case before the Supreme Court.

Justice Blackmun, writing for the majority, began his opinion by giving a brief overview of the Virginia pharmacy regulation statutes, and then distinguished previous challenges to such regulations, explaining that such previous cases had been based on economic due process under the Fourteenth Amendment rather than on free speech grounds. Blackmun reasoned that this case concerned not only commercial regulation, but the free flow of information. This case was just as much about the consumers’ right to receive information as it was about the pharmacists’ right to provide it, and that the right to free speech is just as much about the “listener” as it is about the “speaker”.