In Colorado, a Rebranding of Pot Inc. | Hacker News Reader

In Colorado, a Rebranding of Pot Inc.

nytimes.com

29 pointsbound00812 comments

“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.

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?

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"

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?

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.

Well, the jail part goes away too. So there's that.

> “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?

>And people will eat it up too, who can resist the opportunity to signal that you're better than some other group of people?

The first part of this sentence makes the second part ironic.

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.

Tattoos are both legal and fairly counter culture.

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.

> the marketing has to establish a hierarchy

Most mature products (particularly of leisure) have an associated hierarchy of quality. Top shelf vs. bottom shelf liquor. Name brand food products vs. generic. High fashion outlets vs. walmart.

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