Cite as: 517 U. S. 484 (1996)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
Posadas establish the degree of deference that its decision to impose a price advertising ban warrants.
In Edge, we upheld a federal statute that permitted only those broadcasters located in States that had legalized lotteries to air lottery advertising. The statute was designed to regulate advertising about an activity that had been deemed illegal in the jurisdiction in which the broadcaster was located. 509 U. S., at 433-434. Here, by contrast, the commercial speech ban targets information about entirely lawful behavior.
Posadas is more directly relevant. There, a five-Member majority held that, under the Central Hudson test, it was "up to the legislature" to choose to reduce gambling by suppressing in-state casino advertising rather than engaging in educational speech. Posadas, 478 U. S., at 344. Rhode Island argues that this logic demonstrates the constitutionality of its own decision to ban price advertising in lieu of raising taxes or employing some other less speech-restrictive means of promoting temperance.
The reasoning in Posadas does support the State's argument, but, on reflection, we are now persuaded that Posadas erroneously performed the First Amendment analysis. The casino advertising ban was designed to keep truthful, non-misleading speech from members of the public for fear that they would be more likely to gamble if they received it. As a result, the advertising ban served to shield the State's anti-gambling policy from the public scrutiny that more direct, nonspeech regulation would draw. See id., at 351 (Brennan, J., dissenting).
Given our longstanding hostility to commercial speech regulation of this type, Posadas clearly erred in concluding that it was "up to the legislature" to choose suppression over a less speech-restrictive policy. The Posadas majority's conclusion on that point cannot be reconciled with the unbroken line of prior cases striking down similarly broad regulations on truthful, nonmisleading advertising when non-speech-
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