Pro-Pot App Runs Full-Page Ad In New York Times

A company that produces a marijuana app ran a full-page ad in Sunday’s New York Times, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Leafly, a mobile app that provides users with information about medical marijuana strains and dispensaries, ran the ad congratulating New York for becoming the 24th state to legalize medical marijuana. Called “Just Say Know” – a reference to Nancy Reagan’s mid-1980’s anti-drug mantra “Just Say No” – the ad feature a man and a woman, each using a different strain of marijuana for a different purpose.

Amazing moment – First #Cannabis ad in @NYTimes #JustSayKnow pic.twitter.com/6cyDLSPWgy

— Leafly (@Leafly) August 2, 2014

Leafly CEO Brendan Kennedy told the Wall Street Journal:

“One of the ways you knock down the Berlin Wall of Prohibition is by talking about cannabis in a mainstream way. We’re continuing to look at other mainstream publications that would be open to this type of advertising.”

Previously, Leafly’s ads had only run in marijuana-specific publications such as High Times.

According to Newsmax, this may be the first time the Times has run an ad for a specific marijuana-related product, as opposed to pro-legalization ads.

A Times ad representative told Ad Week:

“While we have run ads from marijuana advocacy organizations in the past, such as NORML [the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws], this may be the first non-advocacy ad that has run.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, a full-age ad in the Sunday Times costs $200,000 or more. The Times did not comment on how much Leafly paid for their ad, although Newsmax reports that Leafly paid $180,000 for their ad.

The Times made headlines last week when it ran an editorial, entitled “Repeal Prohibition, Again” calling for the end of pot prohibition (see this Inquisitr article), saying:

“It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol.”

Shortly after that editorial, the group known as Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana), an anti-legalization advocacy group, ran an ad denouncing the editorial, according to the Washington Post.

Did the New York Times do the right thing in running Leafly’s ad? Should marijuana be legalized? Should ads for pot and pot-related products appear in mainstream publications like the Times? Let us know what you think in the Comments.

Image courtesy of: CBS News