Alternative newspapers and mainstream metropolitan dailies are cashing in on medical marijuana, the New York Times says.
“It is hard to measure what share of the overall market they account for, but ads for medical marijuana providers and the businesses that have sprouted up to service them — tax lawyers, real estate agents, security specialists — have bulked up papers in large metropolitan news markets like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Denver,” the newspaper said Tuesday.
The Obama administration said last fall that it would not prosecute users and suppliers of the drug as long as they complied with state laws. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia make legal allowances for medical marijuana, the Times says.
Demand is so large that newspapers are publishing supplemental guides to medical marijuana with titles like “Chronic-le,” which had 48 pages for its summer issue, “The Rolling Paper” and “ReLeaf,” also 48 pages last week
Scott Tobias, president and chief operating officer of Village Voice Media, which publishes alternative weeklies across the country, said that in Denver, money from advertising for marijuana-related businesses has totaled 15 percent of the weekly Westword’s revenue this year and nearly 40 percent of its classified advertising revenue.
At The Missoula (Montana) Independent, medical marijuana advertising now makes up about 10 percent of the paper’s revenue.