CBS Wont Let Ads For Medical Marijuana Run During The Super Bowl

(Bloomberg) – Acreage Holdings, the multi-state cannabis company backed by John Boehner, says CBS rejected a television advertisement that calls for the legalization of medical marijuana. The network, which is airing the game on Feb. 3, nixed the proposed spot after seeing a rough outline, according to the company.

While medical marijuana is now legal in more than 30 states, the federal prohibition on cannabis has restricted research and made it difficult for some potential patients to get their hands on a drug that proponents say helps treat seizures, pain and other ailments.

The advertisement aimed to “create an advocacy campaign for constituents who are being lost in the dialogue,” Acreage President George Allen said. Super Bowl airtime would have been the best way to achieve this, he added.

Acreage, one of the most valuable U.S. weed companies with a market value of more than $2.4 billion, had hoped to raise its profile and push for increased access to medical marijuana. The proposed ad features two subjects who have benefited from medicinal cannabis: a veteran with combat injuries and a child with seizures.

First and foremost, while anyone with a functioning brain realizes marijuana is harmless and is becoming more and more mainstream in its acceptance nationwide it is important to note that on a federal level it remains a Schedule I drug. In other words, in the eyes of the federal government, this would be the exact same as CBS airing a 30 second commercial for black tar heroin. Because heroin, much like marijuana, is in the same classification of drugs per the federales. Why is that?

Via the DEA: “Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Sounds like the marijuana we all know and love. Which is what people have been fighting against since REEFER MADNESS. Because it’s patently fucking ridiculous to consider marijuana and heroin remotely the same. Fucking fentanyl isn’t even in Schedule I. Marijuana now has hundreds of accepted medical uses being put into practice across the country on a daily basis. More than half the country’s population has lived in states with decriminalized marijuana laws for the better part of a decade. And I’m not one of those “cannabis is the ultimate wonder-drug it can cure everything from cancer to AIDS to the common cold and anything in between” people. But I am one of those, “Medical marijuana can help people in a myriad of ways and that scares that FUCK out of Pharmaceutical companies” people.

So am I going to put on my tin foil hat and ponder out loud if Big Pharma companies are paying CBS to not only hock their products to the masses but also to keep their largest emerging competitor in the dark? You bet your fucking ass I am. Of course they are. And if they aren’t they’re idiots because that’s exactly what they should be doing. Step on their necks and go for the kill, don’t let them get any air to breathe in this fight. Especially at this stage when you’re still the bully in the room. You let one of the largest medicinal marijuana companies in the US get some serious footing and then the next thing you know you’re Enron. (I have no idea what Enron did I have not watched that documentary yet I just know they went bankrupt in a big time way.)

The natural, knee-jerk reaction I’m seeing to this news is to compare it to the countless number of alcohol commercials that will be airing throughout the course of the night. I hate that comparison. Always have always will. Because marijuana isn’t 1/100,000,000th as dangerous. Same goes for sugar. Trans-fats. Etc. The entire night will be filled with commercials for widely-accepted vices. It is what it is.

Eventually medical marijuana will get there, too. Once the federal government takes it out of Schedule I and places it in a proper classification you wont be able to stop seeing it. As for now, companies like Acreage will have no other way to get their $2.4 Billion name out there without headlines like these.

Btw, them acting like fucking Mother Theresa here is hilarious. “Oh we just wanted to do the right thing for people to let them know the efficacy and availability of medicinal marijuana,” is absolutely NOT the reason they were making this commercial. They were making this commercial for the same reason anyone else in the world makes a commercial: to shovel hundreds of millions of dollars into their pockets. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s the American way.