01 Mar Facebook Sued for Anti-Weed Policies

Facebook has a strict antidrug policy. Meaning they don’t allow people to promote drugs, specifically the selling of drugs, on their platform. Cannabis is slowly becoming legalized in the United States. Yet, Facebook still censors the promotion of legal cannabis companies.

You may have noticed that the Chillum CBD Facebook Page was recently taken down.

Don’t worry! It is back up!

We were just thrown in Facebook jail for a little while.  But the reason why our Facebook did some hard-virtual time is because of the CBD products that we sell.  We don’t sell THC Cannabis, but Facebook compared some of our products to pot and decided to exercise some power!

It is difficult for legal cannabis and hemp companies to advertise their products and services, things may be opening up little by little, but traditionally advertising for cannabis is all done online. 

Facebook just so happens to have the highest number of people that fit the demographic for medical and adult use cannabis on their platform.  Not surprising since they are the largest social media platform. However, they have strict rules against cannabis, and this makes it very difficult for cannabis companies to advertise on their platform, or even to have an account!

Even though Facebook officials recently said they would revise their cannabis policies, as our company found out, they are still very strict about what can and can’t go up on Facebook. Deleting numerous accounts and still threatening to delete ours.

Follow us while you can, because you might not get a chance in the near future!

However, a lawsuit has been filed against Facebook for their anti-cannabis policies.

The plaintiffs name is Felicia Palmer and she founded Cannaramic Media Inc. whose goal is to promote cannabis education online. She is being represented for free by a NORML attorney named David C Holland.

The suit claims that Facebook Inc is demonstrating a “pattern of censorship and suppression of information” regarding “legal uses of cannabis”.

The suit was sparked when Facebook took down Palmer’s social media accounts after she paid the site for ads to promote Cannaramic Online Summit, a simple education platform that introduces safe methods of ingesting cannabis.

Palmer also claims that Facebook “induced” her to buy the paid-for-ads, most likely by offering a discount for the service. Even though we are fresh out of Facebook jail, they still offer discount to Chillum for ads too.

“When a private company like Facebook (our largest resource for communication) prohibits the flow of this type of information, it essentially amounts to a threat to the public health, social welfare, and economic vitality of our communities,” Holland told Forbes.

It is indeed a matter of free speech. As times change more and more people use social media to express themselves and there should be reasonable limits on how people express themselves. Now a days, most people are pro cannabis reform. Laws slowly yet surely move toward legalization.  As the majority of people begin to accept the medicinal benefits of cannabis and cannabis culture social media needs to get on board.

This suit might be what is needed to insight change. Hopefully, Facebook isn’t willing to take on more lawsuits before they change their policy.

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