JACKSON, Miss. — The Mississippi Supreme Court yesterday upheld a state law that bans the sale of sex toys.

The justices also said the advertising of the sexual devices is not protected by the right to free speech. Such advertisements, the court said, promote an illegal transaction.

Adam and Eve and ZJ Gifts LLC, the Memphis-based owner of Christal's chain of adult stores, sued the state of Mississippi in 2000. The company claimed the law barring the sale of certain adult devices was unconstitutional.

ZJ Gifts said its Southaven store, open for about a year, had to close in 2001 because it could no longer sell certain "intimate devices." ZJ Gifts contended state law thwarted the rights of customers who wish to purchase adult toys.

Hinds County Chancellor Bill Singletary ruled in 2003 that state law does not extend the right to privacy to the commercial sale of sexual devices. He said state government had an interest in "protecting public physical and mental health and supporting public morality."

Presiding Justice Bill Waller Jr., writing yesterday for the court, said state law provides that physicians and psychologists may prescribe sexual devices for their patients, and the patients may buy them from the physicians and psychologists.

"The novelty and gag gifts which the vendor plaintiffs sell have no medical purpose," Waller wrote.

Waller said there was no fundamental right of access to buy sexual devices. He said while a federal court found a similar Alabama law was unconstitutional, other courts — including ones in Georgia, Louisiana and Texas — have rejected attempts to expand the right to privacy to include the commercial sale of sex toys.