ORDER
This is an action challenging the constitutional validity of three recently enacted Georgia statutes, the so-called “Head Shop Acts:” (1) Ga.Code § 79A-811.1, outlawing the sale or offer of “drug-related objects;” (2) Ga.Code § 26-9913, prohibiting the sale or offer of “drug-related objects” to minors; and (3) Ga.Code § 26-9912, proscribing the sale or display of “restricted drug-related printed material” to minors. Plaintiffs are vendors, distributors, and potential customers of the head shop trade. The sellers purport to represent the interest their minor customers hold in the free flow of drug-related information.
See Craig v. Boren,
On May 3, 1978, the court convened a hearing on plaintiffs’ preliminary and permanent injunction requests, Rule 65(a)(2), Fed.R.Civ.P., as to the one challenged statute remaining within our jurisdiction, Ga. Code § 26-9912, restricting drug-related printed materials. At the hearing the court granted defendants leave to supplement the record with documentary evidence and the defendants agreed to restrain enforcement of the printed materials act pending a decision on the request for injunctive and declaratory relief. The record is now complete and the court may rule on the constitutionality of Ga.Code § 26-9912.
The court will begin our review with a statement of the parties’ contentions. This statement will be followed by a brief presentation of the disputed statute and a marshalling of the evidence presented. Next, in order to choose the applicable standard of review, we will determine whether the statute restricts speech protected by the First Amendment. If protected speech is infringed, the court will then apply a chosen standard of review weighing the competing interests of the state, on the one side, and the interests of the vendors and their minor customers, on the other.
CONTENTIONS OF THE PARTIES
Plaintiffs raise myriad constitutional challenges to the restriction of printed material, but primarily assail its allegedly impermissible vagueness and facial over-breadth in light of First Amendment guarantees. Defendants contend: (1) that various possible constructions of the statute require the federal court to abstain in its constitutional review; (2) that the statute does not compromise First Amendment protection because: (i) no prior restraints are imposed; (ii) stringent regulation and control of communicative material to minors is allowable; and (iii) the exercise of police power in this instance strengthens the parent-child relationship; and (3) that the act is not overbroad as it merely restricts sales of a certain kind of literature to minors. The court need not reconsider defendants’ abstention contentions as nothing has been presented herein which was not previously argued and decided adversely to defendants in our order of April 14, 1978. High OF Times, Inc. v. Busbee, supra at 369-70.
*1038 GA.CODE § 26-9912 and the EVIDENCE PRESENTED
Ga.Code § 26-9912, which has been set out in full in the court’s previous order, High 01’ Times, Inc. v. Bushee, supra at 372 (Appendix), makes it a misdemeanor “to sell, deliver, distribute, display for sale or provide to a minor. . . .” or to possess with intent to transfer to a minor, any restricted drug-related printed material. A minor may also be punished as a misdemeanant for misrepresenting his age in order to purchase or obtain this material. “Restricted drug-related printed material” is defined as any printed matter:
which is intended to disseminate information primarily for one or more of the following purposes: (A) To advocate or recommend the use or possession of a dangerous drug or controlled substance . (B) To advertise, describe, explain, depict or display any method by which a dangerous drug or controlled substance may be obtained or produced . (C) To advertise, describe, explain, depict or display any machine, instrument, tool, equipment, contrivance or device ... to introduce into the human body ... to enhance the effect on the human body ... to conceal any quantity . . . [or] to test the strength, effectiveness or purity of any dangerous drug or controlled substance .
Ga.Code § 26-9912(a)(4).
The banned material is regarded in the act as detrimental to the health, safety, welfare, or morals of minors. The restricted printed material is to be selected and identified “in accordance with the prevailing standards of the adult community taken as a whole . . . .” Ga.Code § 26-9912(b).
Plaintiffs have entered into evidence a series of exhibits from the vendors’ shops which they fear may fall within the statute’s ambit: (1) books: W. Mortimer, The History of Coca (1974); W. Drake, The Connoisseur’s Handbook of Marijuana (1971); and C. Baker, Physicians’ Desk Reference (32d ed. 1978); (2) magazines: High Times, Aug. 1977; Head, Mar. 1978; Newsweek, May 30,1977 at 20 (special article, “Cocaine Out of Control”); and N.Y. Times, Dec. 18, 1977, § 6 at 15 (magazine cover story, “Behind America’s Marijuana High”); and (3) poster: “Marijuana The Assassin of Youth.” The plaintiffs have also elicited testimony on the record of local head shop proprietors, a representative of a national distributor to head shops, and a publisher of a head shop trade magazine. The witnesses’ testimony focused on the issue of irreparable harm but also included a description of the trade and wares of the threatened businesses. Defendants have tendered one book and two magazines as evidence: C. Darth, The Whole Drug Manufacturers Catalog (1977); High Times, Sept. 1977 and April 1978, as examples of material which the statute is intended to proscribe.
The books and magazines generally exalt drugs and hawk the appurtenances of drug use. Defendants seek to highlight the September 1977 High Times’ centerfold, at 56-57, a school lunch box purportedly filled with marijuana, the April 1978 High Times’ guide to the “Best Smuggling Vehicles,” at 60, and the Catalog’s “Kitchen Chemistry and Bathtub Dope Section,” at 60. Defendants contend that this material exemplifies the publishers’ alleged intent to seduce juveniles into illegal drug use and possession. In these same exhibits, however, plaintiffs find articles on electronic surveillance, April 1978 High Times, at 40, and the economic impact of illicit drug traffic in the United States, id. at 45. The court’s review of the April 1978 High Times, as an example chosen by both sides, discloses: (1) a smattering of special articles, such as “Outlaw Strongholds in Columbia,” at 35 (the history and present times of the Guajira peninsula and its people) and “The Last Run,” at 55 (a smuggling expedition ending in capture and conviction of the smugglers); (2) a list of regular features, such as record and book reviews, drug market price and quantity quotations, and a digest of recent court rulings in controlled substances and Fourth Amendment cases; and (3) a wealth of advertisements for such items as, rolling papers, water pipes, and tee-shirts, and for *1039 such groups as, NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), at 72. It is noted that the NORML ad encourages the readers to write to their United States Senators, Representatives, and President urging a change in the present drug laws and penalties.
WHETHER THE RESTRICTED PRINTED MATERIAL INCLUDES “PROTECTED SPEECH”
If the disputed material is not protected by the First Amendment, the state has nearly free rein to regulate and control its publication and distribution. If, however, even a portion of the purportedly restricted material enjoys constitutional protections, the state as a rule may only limit its publication under the most compelling circumstances,
Zwickler v. Koota,
Traditional First Amendment analysis teaches: that constitutional protection is presumed; that the exceptions to protection are few in number; and that the state bears the burden of proving that a particular exception is applicable.
Speiser v. Randall,
By its application of one prong of the
Miller
obscenity standard and by its arguments of lower threshold review for publication to juveniles,
see Ginsberg v. New York,
A second proposed exception, for material which is “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action . ,”
Brandenburg v. Ohio,
The final possible exception, that for direct solicitation of unlawful activity, is also unavailable. In
Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Pittsburgh Commission on Human Rights, supra,
the newspaper’s discriminatory help wanted ad solicited violation of the city’s equal employment ordinance.
See also United States v. Hunter,
Even if this state’s companion statutes outlawing “drug-related objects” were ultimately upheld, advertisements of the availability of such objects in other states where they have not been proscribed could not be stifled. In
Bigelow v. Virginia,
A State does not acquire power or supervision over the internal affairs of another State merely because the welfare and health of its own citizens may be affected when they travel to that State. It may seek to disseminate information so as to enable its citizens to make better informed decisions when they leave. But it may not, under the guise of exercising internal police powers, bar a citizen of another State from disseminating information about an activity that is legal in that State.
at 824-825,
Having failed to identify an exception to First Amendment guarantees, the court concludes that portions, if not all, of the purportedly Restricted Drug-Related Printed Material must be considered protected speech. The court is assured in this conclusion when the array and substance of the material in evidence is reviewed: books, magazines, and a poster touting variant styles, products and ideologies. Although in the court’s mind the material often seems distasteful and its hawkers seldom appear admirable, the First Amendment’s expanse by necessity includes speech which is aberrant, unpopular, and even revolutionary.
NAACP v. Button,
CONSTITUTIONALITY OF GA.CODE § 26-9912
In order to determine the constitutionality of the statutory restriction on the transfer of certain printed material to minors, the court must select and apply the appropriate standard of reviewing the state’s exercise of its power. A scale of onerous to lighter burdens of proof may be applied and the state may be forced to demonstrate either (1) a compelling interest which allows reasonable regulation in special circumstances,
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, supra; Shanley v. Northeast Independent School District,
To begin our review of both standards, we note that it has been declared that “[constitutional rights do not mature and come into being magically only when one attains the state-defined age of majority. Minors, as well as adults, are protected by the Constitution and possess constitutional rights.”
Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, supra,
The minors’ interest, however, does not exist in a vacuum. In this case, a competing interest is posed by the state’s legitimate concern for the welfare of its children.
Prince v. Massachusetts,
The question thus becomes how must the court adjust the competing interests of the state and the represented minors. The Court in
Tinker, supra,
*1043 At the May 3, 1978, hearing on preliminary and permanent relief, defendants conceded that they must show a “compelling state interest which would justify the regulation of the type which is contained in this statute.” Tr. at 108. The only defendants’ evidence which has been proffered has been the one book and two magazines introduced above. These examples of the purportedly restricted material combined with their arguments of constitutionality are woefully insufficient proof and persuasion under this stringent test of validity. If a compelling state interest standard is applied, the statute must certainly be invalidated. If a modification of this standard, that is of reasonable time, place, and manner regulation, were instead applied, the statute would also be struck down as the restriction imposed is not tempered in any manner whatsoever.
Even if the much less strict standard of a “significant state interest” coupled with proof that the statute is a means serving such state interest, is selected, the statute must be declared unconstitutional as well. This second choice of a standard for our review is culled from the Supreme Court’s analysis of the collision of the state’s interest in protecting its children and of the minors’ own constitutional rights to privacy. The court indulges every inference in favor of the state defendants by even reaching this standard and not simply invalidating the statute on the rigorous compelling state interest test alone. Nevertheless, by employing this relatively generous standard, the same defeat results.
Using this less stringent standard, the Supreme Court ruled in
Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, supra,
that a minor’s access to abortion could not be flatly denied by a statutory requirement of parental consent. In
Carey v. Population Services International, supra,
a plurality determined that a minor’s access to contraceptives could not be absolutely withheld by the state. In each instance a “significant state interest” was identified, that of safeguarding the family unit and parental authority,
Danforth,
[W]e again confirm the principle that when a State, as here, burdens the exercise of a fundamental right, its attempt to justify that burden as a rational means for the accomplishment of some significant State policy requires more than a bare assertion, based on a conceded complete absence of supporting evidence, that the burden is connected to such a policy, [footnote omitted].
Carey
at 696,
Here the state identifies laudable interests; the reduction of teenage drug use and the strengthening of the parent-child relationship. But once again, the state has burdened the minors’ fundamental, if not preeminent, interest, and has offered no evidence to demonstrate that limiting access to printed material will foster the goal they envision. The statute must therefore be invalidated under this more indulgent standard as well.
The court, having found that the statute by its terms sweeps overbroadly and proscribes protected speech and having also found no compelling state interest and no significant state policy reasonably effected by the restriction, must DECLARE the statute unconstitutional and must ENJOIN its enforcement.
Accordingly, the court hereby: (1) GRANTS summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs on their challenge of the one stat *1044 ute remaining within our jurisdiction, Ga. Code § 26-9912; (2) DECLARES Ga.Code § 26-9912 unconstitutional; and (3) PRELIMINARILY and PERMANENTLY ENJOINS the state defendants from enforcing Ga.Code § 26-9912.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Notes
. The state has argued that no prior restraints have been imposed because the publication of the material has not been restrained, only the sale of the material to minors has been proscribed. The state’s argument is not at all persuasive in light of
Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan,
. The analogy between free expression and the right to privacy decisions is easily drawn. The right to privacy was found in the penumbras of several constitutional protections, including and most especially, the First Amendment freedoms of speech and association.
Griswold v. Connecticut,
. The Court distinguished
Ginsberg v. New York,
Ginsberg concerned a statute prohibiting dissemination of obscene material that it held was not constitutionally protected. In contrast [the statute under review] concerns distribution of material access to which is essential to exercise of a fundamental right.
Carey v.
Population Services International,
