
In Colorado, a Rebranding of Pot Inc. - bound008
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/fashion/in-colorado-a-rebranding-of-pot-inc-marijuana.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=LargeMediaHeadlineSum&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
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angersock
_“There is a huge untapped market here,” said Ashley Picillo, a 26-year-old
former teacher who runs a cannabis events agency and was the fair’s co-
organizer. “It’s about reaching nonconsumers. Women. Young people. Business
professionals. Grandmothers and soccer moms. People like me.”_

Leave no leaf unturned, I suppose.

All that hard work and all those jail sentences for this for decades, just so
some admen and adwomen can turn a buck. Fucking disgusting.

~~~
kristofferR
I really don't get the issue you have with this. Why do you think it is a bad
thing that some people are trying to remove the stigma of cannabis consumption
and make money doing it?

~~~
sliverstorm
It sounds like your parent is pro-drug-war.

"We tried so hard to stamp it out, and now we are just going belly-up and some
adman is trying to sell it to your grandma"

~~~
angersock
Quite the opposite.

The annoying thing is that there are people serving sentences for--and still
being arrested for in other states!--possession of cannabis and cannabis
accessories. That's awful.

Worse, though, to me is this McDonaldsization of the substance now that
prohibition in Colorado is over. Read my quoted piece again: "Hurf durf
untapped markets...let's got after soccer moms who never considered _trying_
the stuff! Let's go after kids, now that cigarettes are uncool!"

At least with the stoner culture there's well, _culture_ , there...dank and
silly and stupid and fried, but it's a thing. This is just a bunch of sharp
entrepreneurs looking to turn this whole thing into another suburban mass-
produced targeted-advertised _thing_. No soul to it, no suffering, no risk,
nothing but trendy dress codes and careful phraseology.

It _cheapens_ it somehow--a feeling like when I heard Lou Reed being played in
a fucking Chipotle. Does that make my position clearer?

~~~
sliverstorm
I would understand, if only I felt like there was depth to be cheapened in the
first place. There is nothing deep and meaningful about drug culture that I'm
aware of.

You make it sound like stoners were brave pioneers, facing risk and danger and
suffering for a higher purpose. (Pun not intended?) But I never saw that.

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chrismonsanto
> “We’re weeding out the stoners,” ... “We want to show the world that normal,
> professional, successful people consume cannabis.”

In other words, pot for elitists. It's not enough to just open a different
kind of store, the marketing has to establish a hierarchy. And people will eat
it up too, who can resist the opportunity to signal that you're better than
some other group of people?

~~~
sliverstorm
Pot has an image problem. Are you unwilling to accept that?

Realistically, it can't be BOTH the property of countercultural rebels, AND
completely legal. Pick your poison.

~~~
robrenaud
Tattoos are both legal and fairly counter culture.

~~~
sliverstorm
I don't mean that "anything legal will become mainstream".

Cannabis though almost certainly will (or at least a step below- general
acceptance but not universally used)

Its illegality was an obstacle to widespread acceptance that is being removed.

