Last week Twitter became the first social media giant to allow cannabis companies to advertise. Previously, only hemp-deprived topical products could advertise. Twitter is the lone wolf among social media companies allowing cannabis companies to advertise. Other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have a no-cannabis advertising policy. A statement from Twitter said only cannabis companies in the legal states would be permitted to advertise. As well, the ads can’t target anyone under 21 years old. Is This Elon’s Doing? […]
When Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, speculation about looming company-wide changes made worldwide headlines. Every controversial decision Musk made, from “ending” political censorship to charging for verification checkmarks, gave journalists and media outlets salacious opportunities to evaluate his choices. The announcement from the social media platform that it will change its cannabis advertising policies has the industry applauding the bold decision.
The new policy will lift advertising bans on cannabis advertising and related content, allowing for greater promotion of previously restricted ads. According to the policy update announced on February 15, Twitter will immediately allow advertising and promotional content related to legal cannabis products and services. The new rules will make concessions for content that promotes education and research about the plant and allow advertisers to promote brands, products and services.
Specifically, according to the Cannabis Ads Policy, CBD and similar cannabinoid products, THC and related products and cannabis-infused products and services—including delivery services, labs, growing technology, search engines and more—are now allowed to advertise on the platform. Additionally, to incentivize businesses to advertise, Twitter is offering to match every cannabis or CBD advertising dollar spent up to $250,000 until March 30, 2023.
Under the social media platform’s policy change, on February 15 behemoth multi-state operator Trulieve made history as the first company to launch an advertising campaign on Twitter.
“The plant really provides an opportunity for the world outside of traditional medicine that can bring great changes and benefits to all and Twitter is an important platform to educate within,” Gina Collins, chief marketing officer at Trulieve, said. “But there’s also a business reality that nobody talks about—especially in the macro-economic conditions we’re all facing—there’s ad revenue to be had. It has mutual benefits for more than just two key players or one small industry. It seems much bigger than that.”
Collins says she hopes the groundbreaking update from Twitter will encourage cannabis advertising policy reform across other social media platforms, believing the news to be a “catalyst.”
“If there’s bravery on a platform such as Twitter to come out and say this is an untapped industry and allow a credible business to come forth, then the rest will have to reconsider their policies too,” Collins says. “Twitter has been evolving its policies and products since they had a leadership change. Elon Musk is a huge advocate of the plant itself, and I suspect there were pretty active conversations around the decision.”
Potential advertisers will have to contend with an arduous approval process to ensure they follow the updated guidelines and are educated on the platform. Once cannabis executives pass that hurdle, they’ll have new tools with Twitter’s advertising products, such as in-stream videos, promoted tweets and product opportunities, to name a few. While that’s a win for cannabis marketers, the promotion of illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia and content that promotes drug use are still prohibited.
Joe Hodas, chief marketing officer for cannabis MSO Wana Brands, says that the new Twitter policy will change the company’s financial commitment to its 2023 marketing plan.
“Strategically, I still need to reach the consumer and drive them into a dispensary to purchase the product,” Hodas says. “And this has offered me another chance to do it. This potentially gives me another more targeted approach to reaching the consumer I can’t get through programmatic ads.”
Will Other Advertising Platforms Follow Suit?
Search engine giant Google quietly announced it was making some adjustments to its restrictive advertising policies around CBD and hemp products beginning in January 2023. However, it didn’t go nearly as far as Twitter and by all accounts, the updated policies are an excessively costly, burdensome process of paying a certification provider thousands of dollars in application, monitoring and website fees before paying for the advertising costs itself.
While Google did remove CBD from its list of unapproved pharmaceuticals and supplements list, its policies are still highly restrictive, only allowing hemp-derived topical CBD products with less than 0.3% or less THC ad content.
Hodas agrees that, as it so often is the case, education is key to progress and that we’re still contending with a lack of understanding.
“This question of hemp and CBD, it’s an issue for the cannabis industry in the sense that I think there’s a lack of education,” Hodas says. “In the early days, some platforms said CBD was permitted, but not allow THC. Well, now that’s all getting blurred as well. I think this further reinforces that we need better education.”
In a seismic shift away from the way nearly all major social media platforms handle cannabis ad-related content, Twitter announced it will be the first to allow cannabis-related ads based in the U.S.
Twitter announced that it will allow advertisers to promote branded and informational cannabis-related content under the following categories: CBD and similar cannabinoid products; THC and similar products; as well as cannabis-related products and services such as delivery services, labs, growing technology, search engines, and events.
The cannabis ad policy move changes everything for businesses with the money to advertise. Toronto, Ontario-based AdCann in Canada was the first to break the news.
“Up until now, only CBD topical brands were permitted to advertise on Twitter’s platform,” AdCann wrote on its website. “Moving forward—the social network will allow for the promotion of regulated THC and CBD-containing cannabis products, accessories, services and more.”
AdCann continued, “American cannabis companies, brands, and purveyors will need to pass through a Twitter advertiser approval process to ensure they are legitimate and educated on the platform. Once approved, industry marketers will have access to Twitter’s entire suite of advertising products including promoted tweets, promoted product opportunities, location-specific takeovers, in-stream video sponsorships and partner publication features.”
AdCann reiterated that in Canada, cannabis has been legal at the federal level since 2018, so Twitter already allows for cannabis advertising in the country.
Cannabis Companies React to Policy Change
Leading cannabis company PAX, makers of industry standard devices like the PAX Pro and PAX Era, is among the first brands to advertise cannabis-related content on Twitter.
“This is a big moment, as a major advertising platform is making the decision to treat cannabis like any other consumer products category,” Luke Droulez, VP of Marketing at PAX said in a statement obtained by High Times. “We’re excited to be among the first of Twitter’s cannabis advertising partners and be able to engage customers more directly. After decades of prohibitionist propaganda, there is an opportunity to destigmatize and normalize the plant and its use.”
Twitter posted the policy update on its Drugs and Drug Paraphernalia section of the website, which outlines the process for advertisers promoting cannabis products.
“We permit approved cannabis (including CBD – cannabinoids) advertisers to target the United States, subject to the following restrictions:
Advertisers must be licensed by the appropriate authorities, and pre-authorized by Twitter.
Advertisers may only target jurisdictions in which they are licensed to promote these products or services online.
Advertisers may not promote or offer the sale of cannabis (including CBD – cannabinoids)
Exception: Ads for topical (non-ingestible) hemp-derived CBD topical products containing equal to or less than the 0.3% THC government-set threshold.
Advertisers are responsible for complying with all applicable laws, rules, regulations, and advertising guidelines.
Advertisers may not target customers under the age of 21.”
Meanwhile, on Feb. 4, Twitter owner Elon Musk cryptically tweeted “420,” which assuredly is a jab back at a previous 2018 tweet about 420 that landed him in trouble with government and aerospace officials.
In 2018, Musk rounded up Tesla shares from $419 to $420, announcing his plan to go private in a tweet. “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420,” Musk tweeted on Aug. 7, 2018. “Funding secured.”—sending officials from The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into a tailspin. Musk denied the tweet was about cannabis in a California court.
During a California court appearance Monday, when questioned about a 420 tweet, Elon Musk suddenly forgot the significance of the number in pot culture. The tech billionaire responded after being cornered by a prosecutor representing Tesla employees for a class action lawsuit alleging he tweeted and misled shareholders about the price of Tesla shares.
The fiasco began several years ago. In 2018, Musk rounded up Tesla shares from $419 to $420, announcing his plan to go private in a tweet. “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420,” Musk tweeted on Aug. 7, 2018. “Funding secured.”—sending officials from The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into a tailspin.
Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.
Musk said he tweeted the share price based on what he said was a “firm commitment” from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) to take Tesla private. But about 10 days later, Musk admitted that the Tesla buyout he had envisioned wasn’t going to materialize.
After an investigation, the SEC fined Musk $40 million, forcing the billionaire to step down as chair of Tesla’s board. The SEC said that Musk misled investors. In the SEC’s complaint, Musk was accused of rounding up the share price to $420 from $419 “because he had recently learned about the number’s significance in marijuana culture.”
Musk caused instantaneous uproar about a month later, sparking a blunt with Joe Rogan on his show “The Joe Rogan Experience” on Sept. 3, 2018, shocking Tesla investors and officials across the board. His troubles didn’t end there. High Times asked if it was “the most expensive blunt of all time” due to the fallout, with NASA- and SpaceX-associated officials reviewing his security clearance.
The Verge reports that Nicholas Porritt is an attorney for a class of Tesla investors suing Musk for millions of dollars that they say resulted from his failure to take Tesla private.
The courtroom got tense: “You rounded up to 420 because you thought that would be a joke that your girlfriend will enjoy, isn’t that correct?” Porritt asked. “No,” Musk said, adding, “there is some, I think, karma around 420. I should question whether that is good or bad karma at this point.”
Musk said that 420 wasn’t a weed joke, but a roughly 20% premium on the $419 stock price at the time. “420 was not chosen because of a joke,” Musk testified. “It was chosen because there was a 20 percent premium over the stock price.” Musk also claimed that it was a “coincidence.”
The jury will decide if Musk should have to pay out up to billions of dollars in damages to Tesla shareholders for the money they lost due to his tweets.
Judge Edward Chen ruled that the jury should be aware that Musk’s 2018 tweets are false. Jurors will now need to decide whether Musk deceived Tesla shareholders because of his tweets.
Musk said that he was not relying on a commitment for the Saudi PIF when he tweeted “funding secured,” adding that his shares in SpaceX would also help fund the deal to take Tesla private. “Just as I sold stock in Tesla to buy Twitter… I didn’t want to sell Tesla stock, but I did sell Tesla stock,” Musk said. “My SpaceX shares alone would have meant that funding was secured.”
Musk has also been sued by a group of former Twitter employees after a mass firing. Musk recently became the CEO of Twitter after buying the platform for $44 billion in October 2022. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz is Twitter’s second-largest shareholder after Musk.
Full disclosure: there is no cannabis censorship in the Twitter Files. For all its problems, Twitter has been good on the weed file compared to tech companies like Facebook or Instagram. But there are lessons here for cannabis connoisseurs in the Twitter Files. But first, what are the Twitter Files? Twitter Interfered with the 2020 Election On Friday, December 2nd, Elon Musk tweeted, “This will be awesome,” referencing an info dump about to happen. Since taking over the company, Musk […]
Billionaire and self-described free speech champion Elon Musk will acquire Twitter, Inc. according to an April 25 press release. The move will make Twitter private and set off a firestorm of speculation—ranging from whether or not Musk will allow Donald J. Trump to return, to the possibility of an edit button.
Twitter, Inc. entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion.
Musk is the world’s richest person, according to Forbes and most other lists. Bloomberg estimates he has $3 billion in cash, give or take. Musk described $13 billion in bank financing secured by Twitter and the $12.5 billion backed by a pledge of Tesla stake, but it’s not clear how he’s going to come up with the remaining $21 billion to complete the transaction.
The billionaire is citing the move as a victory for free speech, while others disagree on the ethics of the deal and its implications for the future of social media.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” said Musk. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential—I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
With 85.2 million followers and counting, Musk ranks number 8 in the list of the Top 10 Most Followed Twitter Accounts, trailing people like Justin Bieber and former president Barack Obama. He’s gained millions of followers just in the past week or so. But his use of the micro-blogging social media app has been scrutinized and analyzed. The Guardian criticized Musk’s use of Twitter, calling the relationship “chaotic and crass.”
Per the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own upon closing of the proposed transaction. The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s latest closing stock price.
“The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing,” Bret Taylor, Twitter’s Independent Board Chair said. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”
Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CEO said, “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”
Elon Musk and Cannabis
Does the 420 in the share value sound familiar? On August 7, 2018, Musk tweeted he was mulling over taking Tesla private, quoting a price of $420 per share for the buyout.
Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.
He told the New York Times that he’s aware of how popular weed is, but he’s not sure how it could help productivity, to be candid. “It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419,” Musk said. “But I was not on weed, to be clear.” That all changed a month later on a podcast appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.
On September 6, 2018, Musk smoked a blunt on episode #1169 of The Joe Rogan Experience. Rogan himself became embroiled in the topic of free speech due to his Spotify fiasco, over concerns the podcaster was sharing information that wasn’t medically sound.
If it sounds like a seriously bad joke, the idea has all the elements of a modern day (social media enhanced) soap opera. Namely, that the Taliban, an extremist group, which takes rather radical stands against things like women’s rights and cannabis reform, would enter an international cannabis deal. And further announce it on Twitter.
However, this is exactly what did happen last week and further on a global stage. They say that truth is stranger than fiction—and in truth it is very hard to believe that someone did not make this up.
Here are the developments so far.
Taliban Deal Announcement Via Twitter
In a move that might make some of the biggest cannabis companies in the world green with jealousy, namely in the kind of media attention the announcement generated, Taliban Press Director Qari Saeed Khosty claimed that a contract had been signed between the government and a cannabis firm called Cpharm to set up a $450 million cannabis processing centre in Afghanistan, and further that the facility would be “up and running within days.” The news ran globally, picked up by outlets including the Times of London.
This also coincided with a report on Afghanistan’s Pajhwok Afghan News Service that representatives of the company met with counter-narcotic officials at the Ministry of the Interior to discuss the production of medicines and creams.
Cpharm Australia, the first company named in the press as being involved in the deal, subsequently rebuked the claim—via Reuters. The company is a cannabis consulting business and not a manufacturer and would not be able to raise the amount mentioned, according to reports.
Confusion Upon Confusion—And the German Twist
Even after reports began to surface that the story was in fact fake, another report surfaced, this time in the German language zine Taz.de, only this time making claims that the Taliban government was working with a German company called Cpharm and further that the deal was inked on the day the Traffic Light Coalition agreed to legalize recreational cannabis. According to Taz.de, Taliban spokesperson Khosty claimed that the agreement provides for the German company to build a factory in Afghanistan for processing medical cannabis and in exchange receive a monopoly on the national industry.
According to online company reports, the only Cpharm GmbH listed was formed in 2005, liquidated in 2009 and deleted from the company registry in 2015. There is a Cpharm.org which is based in Bonn which does claim on its website that the company has developed global cannabis projects including in Afghanistan. However when High Times reached out to a partner company associated with the same, BONGLOBAL Deutschland, headquartered in Berlin, we were told that the story was fake and further that the company CEO Werner Zimmerman was unavailable for comment and was travelling outside of the country.
The Many Strange Twists and Turns…
Whoever the company referenced in official communications by the Taliban is, and no matter the actual stage of the project (if it in fact exists), the reality is that the group has been rather famously two-faced when it comes to all things cannabis (and opium) related. Indeed, at the beginning of 2020, the Taliban issued a ban on the cultivation of cannabis in the areas of the country they controlled. After overtaking all of Afghanistan in August, the group vowed to crack down on cannabis production across the country. Just a few months later, in October, Yussef Wafa, a governor of Kandahar, said that he had been arresting both drug users and had prohibited local farmers from the cultivation of both opium and cannabis.
Farmers on the ground, however, have reported no real change in the group’s approach to cannabis (or them) in the last months since taking over the country in a military coup. Indeed this year they are reporting a bumper crop.
This in fact would be more in keeping with the history of the Taliban when it comes to all things cannabis (and indeed poppy) related. Both crops have historically been sources of income to fund the group since it operated as a U.S. funded insurgent against the Soviet occupation of the region in the 1980s.
Whoever the company is that may or may not be working on this project (if this is also actually in process), however, remains a mystery.
No matter the corporate entity, which might be involved in the same, it will have significant difficulty transferring any profits they make from Afghanistan, starting with obtaining exemptions from the U.S. Treasury Department.
Alex Berenson—author of Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence—received a permanent suspension from microblogging platform Twitter for spreading misinformation. While Berenson is known for his vocal opposition to cannabis legalization, this time, he was punished for spreading false information about COVID-19.
On his Substack page, Berenson posted a brief message, titled, “Goodbye Twitter” with a screenshot of his original tweet that led to his suspension. Berenson’s tweet that triggered the ban claimed that COVID-19 vaccines do not work. “It doesn’t stop infection. Or transmission,” Berenson tweeted. “Don’t think of it as a vaccine.”
Twitter officials believe that Berenson can’t be trusted to tell the truth, and that the accumulation of misleading tweets justifies a suspension.
“The account you referenced has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of our COVID-19 misinformation rules,” a Twitter spokesperson told Fox News in response to an inquiry on August 28.
“The first four states to legalize—Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington—have seen sharp increases in murders and aggravated assaults since 2014, according to reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Berenson wrote in a New York Times op-ed. “Police reports and news articles show a clear link to cannabis in many cases.” Berenson was a former employee of the New York Times several years prior.
Berenson’s op-ed was published at the time of the release of Tell Your Children, his book that attempts to link violence with cannabis use. One night, Berenson’s wife Jacqueline, remembered a case in which a man “cut up his grandmother or set fire to his apartment.” Later Jacqueline wrote, “Of course he was high, been smoking pot his whole life.”
Berenson’s New York Times op-ed and book were so misleading, that two leading psychologists felt compelled to debunk the article in The Guardian.
Carl L Hart is the chairman and Ziff professor of psychology and psychiatry at Columbia University and author of High Price: A Neuroscientist’s Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society. Charles Ksir is professor emeritus of psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Wyoming and author of Drugs, Society and Human Behavior.
“Back in the 1930s, when there were virtually no scientific data on marijuana, ignorant and racist officials publicized exaggerated anecdotal accounts of its harms and were believed,” the authors wrote. “Almost 90 years and hundreds of studies later, there is no excuse for these exaggerations or the inappropriate conclusions drawn by Berenson.”
Alex Berenson on Censorship
This is by no means the first time a publisher or platform has banned Berenson for the spread of misinformation. Amazon denied taking part in a few of his booklets. Berenson’s former employerThe New York Times declined to review his latest novel. In a December op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Berenson warned that the COVID-19 pandemic had ushered in “a new age of censorship and suppression.”
In an op-ed in Reason, the writer explained that while Berenson tried to scare people from pot, and vastly underestimated the death toll of COVID-19, it was a mistake to ban Berenson permanently from Twitter. Banning him from Twitter may only make things worse. The implications of banning one person could be extended to another.
The writer explained that if anything, Berenson will just profit more from his “martydrom” from Twitter. “COVID-19 has allowed Berenson to fully embrace his role as a purveyor of delusions,” the article reads, but a ban will only fuel the fire of opposition to those opinions.
Berenson’s ban got political very quickly. “I don’t know Berenson,” Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted. “But all the Leftie Brown Shirts cheering his being banned—you are the problem. You’re supporting authoritarian billionaires’ arbitrary censorship. & you are contributing to so many people’s distrust of Covid info—by silencing dissent, many are skeptical.”
It’s important to note that there are vastly different opinions of Berenson. Senator Ron Johnson (R–Wisconsin) called him a “courageous voice of reason” and “a valuable counter-perspective.”
June 25, 2019
(updated June 29, 2019)
Published by SDZ News
No matter where you are in the world of weed, you can always depend on Twitter to reflect the highs, lows, joys, and pains of your stoner’s life. With savage CBD oil memes, 420 musings, and the hashtag #stonerproblems, the life of the modern toker can be seen in all its glory on Twitter.
For June, we’re highlighting the tweets that remind us of all the painfully funny shit that can happen when you’re high AF out in public. So keep your cool, have your eye drops ready, and enjoy.
“Sorry, were you talking?”
when you high and you been hearing something for awhile and you look over and it was your Bestfriend talking to you pic.twitter.com/s7yJwW7xk5
The age-old conversation (or lack thereof) you have with your bestie when you’re high and they’re not — exemplified by two of our greatest modern pop queens, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga.
When You Take an Edible 30 Minutes Before a Meeting
When your boss calls a last-minute Friday meeting and you jumped the gun on your edible. pic.twitter.com/5I1SuNKScS
If you’re reading this, you might be that friend in the group — the one who shows up to a gathering with a conspicuously big grin on their face and a loud, embarrassing greeting. Hey, somebody’s gotta do it.
Don’t Mind Me, Just Eatin’ Ice Cream with the Tools at My Disposal.
There’s being stoned, and then there’s ‘eating ice cream on a train with a lighter’ type of stoned pic.twitter.com/XSfZugGsFx
More proof that stoners are some of the most resourceful cats in the universe. We may not always have a fork handy, but we’ll make do with the tools we typically dohave.
When you’re high and out to eat, staring down a menu is like standing at the bottom of Mount Olympus. But don’t worry, soon the autopilot will kick in and you’ll have an ample selection of value menu items in your belly.
The other, slightly less-stressful Mount Olympus we’ve all climbed at the local 24-hour pharmacy. When all else fails, just go for the Cheetos and be done with it.
We’ve all been the one to spark a blunt at a party, only to watch it go way too quickly for comfort. If this tweet hits particularly close to home for you, maybe it’s time to give yourself a break and let some other toker feed the masses for a change.
Whether it’s a TED talk or a wedding toast, giving a public speech can be a nerve-wracking experience for anyone. In some cases, it might be preferable to calm the nerves with a healthy puff beforehand. That way you can distract yourself from your jitters with the challenge of making the speech without looking high AF.
(@Teencatpuke)