Reply #23: Spoken, I assume, by someone with no background in constitutional law [View All]

Your argument makes a logical leap unsupported by the decision, which I can only assume you haven't bothered to read. First, the case involved a school setting, not kids sitting at home. Second, it involved a restriction on speech by kids directed to kids. Not speech by adults directed to the population at large. The case decided and the case you postulate are simply not comparable. Indeed, a majority of the court didn't even buy into the broad interpretation offered by Roberts, Scalia,and Thomas. Kennedy and Alito wrote a separate opinion expressly stating the very narrow grounds on which they were ruling and their differences with the broader approach urged by the other three. That's 6-3 against a broader interpretation and even that broad interpretation wouldn't reach the scenario you postulate.

Finally, even if there was any merit to the OP's "analysis" of what the court actually held, it falls far short of creating a legal right of action in parents in the absence of any law. Now, if Congress passed a complete ban on advertising of alcohol or tobacco products, would it be sustained? I doubt it, and don't see anything in this ruling that would require such an outcome. But even assuming that this court would stretch the reasoning of the Bong Hits case to sustain a ban on all commercial speech involving tobacco/alcohol, that fact doesn't mean that in the absence of such a ban parents or individuals have any legal grounds for suing anyone for such advertising. Pass a ban, violate the ban, get sued. No ban, no basis for a suit.