Cannabis Publications Push Back On Porn In Federal Lawsuit

Booksellers and cannabis publications are pushing back at Colorado’s plans to hide cannabis magazines with porn behind the counter.

The Associated Press is reporting that the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit in Colorado challenging the state’s new law requiring cannabis magazines to be treated as porn at bookstores and newsstands.

The ACLU lawsuit was filed on behalf of numerous independent bookstore owners as well as Denver’s The Tattered Cover, one of the most well known bookstores in the world.

This latest lawsuit by the ACLU is one of two lawsuits pending. The other suit was filed on behalf of The Daily Doobie and The Hemp Connoisseur.

“I think the decision to place either cannabis-themed or sex-themed magazines out of the reach of children is equally misguided; both decisions have been made for essentially moral reasons and have no basis in science of which I’m aware. While to my knowledge, there has never been any evidence to suggest that kids are harmed by viewing images of either drugs or sex, one fact every parent knows is that the surest way to engage a child’s curiosity in an object is to try to keep it out of their reach,” Cannabis Now Magazine editor in chief Jeremy Daw said in response to the new state law singed by Gov. John Hickenlooper, last week.

Ironically, the recent historic law, which legalizes cannabis in Colorado for recreational use, also includes this loophole, which brands cannabis publications as porn. Many cannabis activists celebrating the law’s passage are now left scratching their heads. At a time when laws are being written to legalize cannabis why would that same law attack cannabis publications?

The Daily Doobie posted this editorial highlighting the double standard:

“The purpose of Amendment 64 was to regulate marijuana like alcohol. Images of other legal drugs alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals—abound in the public sphere, as do magazines that write about and depict their use. Relegating High Times (and the Daily Doobie) to the back shelf, therefore, violates the spirit of ’64 when Cigar Aficionado and Wine Spectator are perfectly visible at Barnes & Noble.”

Meanwhile, cannabis magazine readers where cannabis remains illegal can easily obtain Cannabis Now or High Times in states, such as Texas, on the newsstand,  but in Colorado- where cannabis is now legal- will soon have to ask a salesmen behind the counter in order to purchase a copy of either publication.

A lawyer with High Times told the AP that the new provision in the Colorado law is “blatantly unconstitutional.”

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