A victory for free speech

The Government has backed down on its plans to ban advertising of medicines. This is a good thing. For the Government to ban speech (of which advertising is a part) it has to prove to a very high standard that a failure to do so will result in considerable harm. On this issue there was no substantive evidence to back a ban.

Disclosure: I have done some work for British drug firms helping them advocate the UK should adopt the same law as New Zealand in allowing such advertising. However my views on my blog are my own, not my clients, and the work was for the UK, not NZ.