COURT SAYS T CAN'T BAR AD BY PRO-MARIJUANA GROUP

The MBTA's top official said yesterday he is considering either going
to the US Supreme Court or banning all advertising that deals with
political issues after a federal appeals court ruled that the transit
agency violated free speech rights when it banned advertisements from
a group seeking to legalize marijuana.

"To avoid this issue altogether, we could just ban public service
advertisements," said Michael Mulhern, general manager of the
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. "Now that keeps out
nonprofit and social service groups, promoting messages for the public
good. So that is a weighty decision."

A group that favors legalization of marijuana, Change the Climate,
based in Greenfield, teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union
of Massachusetts to sue the T after the authority rejected its request
to place ads in buses, subway cars and trolleys. The US Court of
Appeals for the First Circuit issued a ruling late Monday saying the
ban was wrong.

The ruling said that the MBTA is not a wide-open public forum where
anything goes, and that the T's guidelines for filtering ads were
reasonable. But the appeals court judges said the guidelines were used
to discriminate against the Change the Climate ads.

Civil liberties lawyers and First Amendment specialists said the
ruling is important because government agencies must not restrict free
speech.

"It would really alter the nature of our society to allow the
government to control the debate and decide which points of view can
be heard," said Sarah Wunsch, staff lawyer for the ACLU, who argued
the case along with Boston lawyer Harvey Schwartz.

People might find ads that promote marijuana legalization offensive,
she said, "but we're ultimately better off allowing all points of
view to be heard."

In one of three ads at issue, a teenage girl is shown saying she's not
stupid and knows that marijuana is not as serious a drug as cocaine.

In rejecting the ads, the T argued that they would be seen by
juveniles. But the court chastised the T, saying that its abundant
liquor advertising is more influential on minors.