The problems of pouring-rights contracts.

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Commercial activities abound in public schools. These activities range from direct advertisements to product sales, from instructional materials to market research.1 This Note examines one type of commercial activity: soft-drink sales through pouring-rights contracts in public schools. Pouring-rights contracts refer to large payments from soft-drink companies to [schools or] school districts in return for the right to sell that company's products-and only those products.2 The legal response to these contracts is a tattered patchwork of local, state, and federal regulations.3 This Note argues that pouring-rights contracts cause several problems, and that these problems demand a legal solution. Principally, they harm students by encouraging the frequent consumption of soft drinks, which increases obesity. These contracts also undermine the integrity of public education by using compulsory education laws to expose children to unhealthy soft drinks, they dilute the curriculum by discouraging soft-drink consumption in nutrition classes while encouraging soft-drink consumption the rest of the day,