“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.

The first six dispensaries have to be nonprofits, which is expected to keep prices down, but then commercial concerns can get in on the trade. ” I can very well envision commercials, much like for Levitra or Claritin, on the airways,” said State Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton), who co-sponsored the bill to legalize medical marijuana.

“Lou Stancampiano, VP at The Jersey Journal, said there is potential for newspaper revenue from the category ‘if it moves into distribution of traditional promoters, like chain pharmacies, people who have a tendency to promote.’” Stancampiano added that hospitals are trdaitionally big newspaper advertisers, and specifically named Jersey City Medical Center as a potential medical marijuana distributor.

Said Jim Rothenberg, executive VP-creative director for D&R Advertising in Fort Lee, “What media they’ll get into, I’m not sure, but I am sure there will be some wonderful creative done.”