Tech

‘Let’s Make This Work’: The First Weed Commercial Is About to Hit American TV

It was the first thing bought and sold on the Internet. Bill Murray likes it. Veterans like it. Your grandma maybe likes-slash-needs it. Carl Sagan really (really) liked it. Hell, we even took a trip to Colorado to learn about the so-called “green rush” cropping up around it. And now both medicinal and recreational cannabis are legal, taxed economies in parts of the US, there’s bound to be television commercials highlighting it. 

That time has come. The first weed commercial is slated to air on major networks, including A&E, Fox, CNN, Comedy Central, Food Network, and the History Channel. The minute-long spot is for MarijuanaDoctors, a company that connects medical marijuana patients with local doctors. The company does not “promote the casual or recreational use of marijuana or any other prescription medication,” though, according to their website.

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The ad is airing in New Jersey, where medical marijuana has been legal since 2010. “Securing the airtime for our commercial on a major network was extremely difficult and at the same time, extremely satisfying,” Jason Draizin, the founder and CEO of MarijuanaDoctors, said in a press release

It’s only slightly hokey. The ad compares buying weed from your run-of-the-mill dealer to buying sushi from a street dealer (“I got that sashimi”), which is clearly the most obvious correlation you could draw (black market tuna, anyone?). The idea seems to be to encourage people to go the legal route, as opposed to breaking the law to obtain weed.

At any rate, New Jersey is a prime test market to air the commercial. You can currently get a medical marijuana card in New Jersey for “cancer, glaucoma, positive HIV/AIDS status, or the treatment of these conditions; a chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition or its treatment that produces cachexia or wasting syndrome, severe or chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, severe and persistent muscle spasms; and other medical conditions that may administratively be added by the department,” according to this state senate report

But the Garden State has been talking about completely legalizing weed for a while now. State senator Nick Scutari recently said—wait for it—it’s “high time” the state addresses the issue. If New Jersey does legalize weed, it would of course become the third state to do so, along with Colorado and Washington.

Which is all to say we’ve come a long way, now that pot is making its way onto the television in commercial form. Just in time for your nightly couch lock.