US:The US supreme court has lifted some restrictions on political advertising but tightened limits on free speech for students - at least when they might be talking about smoking marijuana.
In separate rulings yesterday, the court said that a Wisconsin anti-abortion group should have been allowed to broadcast television ads during the final two months of the 2004 election, but decided that an Alaska school principal was justified in prohibiting a student from unfurling a banner that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus". Wisconsin Right to Life was prevented from broadcasting ads that named the state's two senators, Democrats Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, a few weeks before the 2004 election.
A provision in the campaign finance Bill Mr Feingold co-authored with Republican presidential candidate John McCain said that sponsors of issue ads that cast candidates in a positive or negative light should be subject to statutory limits on contributions and spending.
In a five-four majority ruling, the court found that such an interpretation of the law unreasonably limited speech and violated the anti-abortion group's rights under the First Amendment to the US constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression.
"Discussion of issues cannot be suppressed simply because the issues may also be pertinent in an election," chief justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
"Where the First Amendment is implicated, the tie goes to the speaker, not the censor."
The ruling could have important implications for next year's presidential campaign, allowing interest groups, including businesses and trade unions, to run politically-charged ads close to primary votes in key states.
"It is regrettable that a split supreme court has carved out a narrow exception by which some corporate and labour expenditures can be used to target a federal candidate in the days and weeks before an election," Mr McCain said.
In the other case, Joseph Frederick argued that he was exercising his First Amendment rights when he unfurled his "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner as the torch for the 2002 Winter Olympics was passing outside his school of Juneau, Alaska.
Unimpressed, school principal Deborah Morse ran across the street and tore it down.
He also suspended Mr Frederick from school for five days on the grounds that it was unacceptable to promote drug use to other school pupils.
Mr Frederick claimed that schoolchildren had established their right to free speech in 1969, when the supreme court ruled in Tinker v Des Moines that a 13-year-old and a 15-year-old were entitled to wear black armbands to school in protest against the Vietnam War.
He claimed that the message on his banner was meaningless and denied promoting drug use, but the supreme court yesterday sided with the principal.
"The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic.
"But Principal Morse thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one," chief justice Roberts said in his judgment.
Mr Frederick, who received support from conservative and religious organisations as well as from civil liberties groups, said he had to drop out of college because his father lost his job due to the Bong Hits controversy.
Now 23, Mr Frederick pleaded guilty in 2004 to a misdemeanour charge of selling marijuana at Stephen F Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.