A coalition of health-related and senior citizens organizations is launching a new campaign for legislation to ban pharmaceutical companies from advertising drugs directly to consumers.

The effort to ban the ads is being led by an anti-advertising organization founded by Ralph Nader, Commercial Alert, and a group promoting “social justice” in the health care system, the National Women’s Health Network.

“Prohibition, that’s what’s best for public health,” the executive director of Commercial Alert, Gary Ruskin, said in an interview. In a statement, he called the ads “dishonest and dangerous” and said they have increased the damage done by drugs with harmful side effects.

Mr. Ruskin said the ads encourage patients to demand prescriptions from physicians for drugs that may be ineffective or even dangerous. More than 200 physicians at prominent medical schools have announced support for an advertising ban.

Mr. Ruskin has drafted legislation, dubbed the Public Health Protection Act, which has won the endorsement of 39 organizations. He said efforts to find a congressional sponsor have just begun. “First, you build the legislative coalition, then you start to find somebody who will introduce it,” he said.

A trade group for the drug industry said yesterday that prohibiting such ads, which are ubiquitous on television, would be ill advised.

“A ban on the advertising of prescription medicines would hurt patients’ ability to learn about new medicines in a timely fashion and does not advance quality health care,” a senior vice president at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Ken Johnson, said in a statement. So-called direct-to-consumer advertising “empowers patients, increasing people’s awareness of diseases and available treatments,” he said.

An attorney with a pro-business legal advocacy group, the Washington Legal Foundation, charged that the proposal violates the First Amendment.

“Very clearly, it’s unconstitutional,” the lawyer, Richard Samp, said. “The opponents of advertising essentially are saying let’s stop advertising because too much truth and information is bad for people…. The Supreme Court absolutely rejected that rationale.”

Mr. Ruskin conceded that an outright ban on drug advertising may not pass muster in the courts. He said that’s why he included fallback provisions in the proposed legislation that would take away federal tax deductions for such ads, require new disclaimers, and impose a 3% windfall profits tax on drug companies.

“The constitutionality of a ban on direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising is unclear, so because of that we need to have a backup,” the anti-advertising activist said. “As advocates we have to advocate for the best public health solution…. Unfortunately, there’s a series of bad court decisions which have given corporations more constitutional rights than they should have.”