A little background: One of the assignments in my Econ. class is an on-going project involving a business start-up. The final for the project is a 30 second and a 60 second commercial for the business. This year, I have a kid who strongly wants to start a medical marijuana dispensary as his business. I am resistant to the idea if for no other reason than the FCC wouldn’t allow commercials for such a place to get broadcast, even on cable. But I’d like to be able to back up my hunches with facts. Any Doper know specifically in FCC regulations I can find such a prohibition? Or am I completely off-base with this, and the ads would be legal?
For starters, it’s been brought up on the boards that the FCC only covers broadcast transmissions, not cable. I can’t cite this at the moment (i.e., the assertion could be wrong or I could be misremembering), but it could be one aspect to go on.
I haven’t really done the research on this issue, but I don’t think there’s any FCC regulation against it. There’s an FCC regulation against advertisements for tobacco, but not, I think, marijuana. Of course, it might be illegal under another agency’s rules; the FDA or the DEA or something, and even if it isn’t, he’s probably going to have a hard time buying the ad time, but I don’t think there’s an FCC regulation against it.
Also, FWIW, in Vegas there are tons of billboards and other ads for medical marijuana clinics and doctors. Not cable per se, but it’s out there.
The FCC used the now defunct Fairness Doctrine to ban tabacco ads.
Then Congress passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act
The FCC doesn’t have control over cable except in a very few minor areas, which are related to importation of over the air signals and the like.
As far as I have read the FCC has made no decsion on the medical marijuna issue. It’s likely that a clinic would have to submit an ad and have it rejected then appeal to the FCC. The FCC would rule and the ruling would be taken to the courts and ultimately decided there.
Many groups have been trying to block prescription drugs ads on TV saying all it does is urge uninformed people to bug their doctor into prescribing a particular drug. These have all failed, though many of the ads have been “tweeked” a bit with disclaimers etc.
When you research this remember to look into self-regulation. A lot of these so called “bans” on products are not really law, but actually agreements worked out between companies and governmental agencies or as the result of a settlement of a lawsuit.
As long as there isn’t an outright ban on such ads, I’m inclined to give the kid the go-ahead for the project. I’ve already cleared it with Administration, so there won’t be any problems there. Rhythmdvl, thanks for the reminder about Vegas billboards. I’d seen those, but they didn’t click in my mind as being applicable here, but they are.
You’re the teacher, right? How about you ask the student to get a formal response from the authorities? Let her give you as a reference so they know it’s a legitimate learning exercise. After all, learning what you can and cannot do is part of the education process, isn’t it?
That had crossed my mind, and I’m likely to do just that. You want to do it, you have to prove it’s legal. Basic lesson there for everybody in class.
Not sure, but I think maybe the Fedral Trade Commission has some authority dealing with advertising. Dunno if they would have anything specific to marijuana or not…
A club in Sacramento started running TV ads last year.
Really?
What then you’re teaching isn’t the America I grew up in.
Land of the free, Live free or die, Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech, etc.
But if we want to talk about this more, I think we’ll have to move the discussion to GD.