Pubdate: Thu, 11 Feb 2016
Source: Tucson Weekly (AZ)
Copyright: 2016 Tucson Weekly
Contact:  http://www.tucsonweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/462
Author: Maria Ines Taracena

SOCIAL MEDIA HATES ON WEED

Last week, dispensary owners in Arizona, and other states, woke up to 
news their Facebook pages were deleted

At least a handful of medical marijuana dispensaries in Tucson 
realized their Facebook pages had been deleted on Thursday, Feb. 4 by 
the social media site, according to the Daily Haze.

Facebook claimed they had banned the pages because the company does 
not allow any material that "condones drug use."

The Haze spoke to Tucson's Earth's Healing's marketing director, 
Florence Hijazi, who told the online publication that not having a 
Facebook page damages the dispensary's business, because their 
patients check their page on a daily basis for different specials and 
other updates. Hijazi also told the Haze that, in response to being 
kicked out of Facebook, Earth's Healing plans to focus more on their 
Twitter account and their phone app.

The move isn't exclusive to Tucson-there were pages deleted around 
the country, and dispensary owners seemed to be getting the same 
justification from Facebook, the Haze says.

"Your page is currently not visible on Facebook. It looks like 
content on your page does not follow the Facebook Community Terms and 
Standards."

"The site does not allow ads that promote the sale or use of . . . 
illegal, prescription, or recreational drugs."

The trend began back in 2014, when Instagram "heavily" deleted 
marijuana-themed accounts.

The Haze pointed out that two years ago, Tim Rathschmidt, a 
spokesperson for Facebook, told the Huffington Post: "The legality 
around the sale and use of marijuana greatly varies around the world, 
which is part of the reason why we strictly prohibit the promotion of 
the sale and use of the drug itself. The risk of attempting to allow 
ads promoting the drug in certain states or countries where it is 
legal is too high for us to consider at this time. However, we work 
pretty hard to differentiate ads promoting the sale or use of the 
drug versus ads promoting advocacy or the legalization of the drug. 
The latter is the type of content we do not want to censor through 
ads, and is widely considered different than something promoting the 
actual drug itself."

And, last year the San Francisco Chronicle reported that medical 
marijuana businesses were banned from iTunes and Instagram, too.

A spokesperson for Facebook and Instagram told the SF Chronicle at 
the time, "guidelines do not allow the promotion of the sale of 
illegal content. Once something is reported to us our teams review 
it, will remove it if it violations those policies, and in some cases 
we will disable the account."

But medical marijuana is legal in 23 states, as well as D.C. Why is 
Facebook using the anti-weed card to ban dispensaries that are 
obviously located in states where medicinal cannabis is allowed? In 
fact, Facebook's home state, California, could even legalize 
recreational marijuana this year.

The Weekly reached out to Facebook for additional comment, but did 
not hear back as of press time.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom