On May 18th, a local TV Station in New York that goes by the name of SNY, aired a TV spot for a weed dispensary during a Mets game. This has been so extremely off limits for so long that one would think the station made a mistake. In fact, there was some backlash to the commercial.
Greg Hach is a Republican running for Congress in New York, and he took the opportunity to blame the Dems.
“What happened to wholesome? NY Democrats carved out a loophole to allow weed ads on sports TV, knowing full well that kids watch baseball games. Shame on them.”
Turns out he’s right. Well, maybe not the partisanship, but the Cannabis Control Board in NY introduced new marketing rules for television in 2022 that allowed dispensaries to air commercials as long as they don’t have any material that could potentially be targeting minors. This includes not using cartoon characters, celebrities, toy images, or slang such as “stoner” “chronic” “weed” or “pot”. The rules are strict, but not impossible.
So we’re finally starting to see some dispensaries take advantage of the rules set forth in the state. For comparison, the alcohol industry has had to deal with a law that bans them from showing the drinking of a product in ads, and they’ve been finding creative ways past this for decades.
Read the original story at the New York Post.
