CANOGA PARK, Calif. – A 2016 ballot initiative and new regulations from Cal/OSHA could place a de facto ban on adult content production in California, according to a noted First Amendment attorney.
Attorney Jeffrey Douglas, who also serves as chairman of the board of directors for industry trade organization Free Speech Coalition, said the double-whammy that may hit California producers later this year rivals the obscenity prosecutions of the 1970s and ’80s, when production was forced underground by distorted enforcement of the law.
On the surface, both the initiative and the regulations are designed to protect the health and wellbeing of performers. The Cal/OSHA regulations under consideration would require performers to wear eye protection and dental dams in addition to condoms. The statewide ballot initiative seeks to levy massive fines on studios and independent participants in content production who don’t employ all available barrier protections. The ballot initiative contains provisions the would allow any California citizen to sue performers and producers whose products appear not to comply with the initiative’s mandates.
Both the regulations and the initiative have been advanced by Michael Weinstein, president of the controversial AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Douglas said. AHF’s apparently morals-based approach to HIV prevention have been opposed by the ACLU, LGBT rights groups, HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations and public health departments.
“There is no way to comply with these regulations as written,” said Douglas. “Weinstein will push most of the larger producers out of state and the rest underground.
“Over the past 25 years, we have built a legal, responsible, safe industry, and it’s about to be destroyed by one man’s moral crusade,” he added. “The adult industry is facing its gravest threat since the Nixon administration.”
While previous attempts to pass similar laws in the legislature failed, the new ballot initiative is much more difficult to defeat, since most voters will not be aware of the industry’s rigorous testing protocols or its multifaceted system of HIV prevention. The regulated adult industry has not experienced an on-set transmission of HIV since 2004, according to FSC records.
“These restrictions aren’t about performer safety or public health,” said FSC Executive Director Eric Paul Leue. “It is about turning the adult industry into an arm of [Weinstein’s] version of a safer-sex campaign. In doing so, he’ll push production into the shadows, decimate the testing system we’ve fought so hard for and ultimately harm the very performers he claims to want to protect. It’s anti-science, anti-sex and anti-free-expression. We will fight this until the end.”
Producers, performers, cam studios and others interested in the potential new regulations or the initiative may contact info@freespeechcoalition.com.
