DENVER -- If you are old enough to remember candy cigarettes, they may be what actors have to use in front of Colorado audiences.

Even pretending to be a smoker is illegal in the state, if real cigarettes are used as props on stage.

Denver District Judge Michael A. Martinez said there is no exemption allowed for Colorado's theater companies to use real cigarettes on stage. The state's indoor smoking ban gets top billing.

Theaters seeking the exception said they didn't even want to smoke tobacco, they've been smoking herbal alternatives on stage for years. But the judge says there's no proof that smoking anything is covered by freedom of artistic expression, and a rule is a rule.

Directors have said that fake cigarettes, like those containing talcum powder, look fake and distract the audience.

Theater advocates said the ruling sets up a future constitutional struggle in court over free speech rights.

Curious Theatre, Denver's Paragon Theatre and Boulder's Theatre13 challenged the law.