As the first place to legalize recreational weed, you would think Colorado would have some of the more unusual laws surrounding its sale. After all, the first time you do something, you usually screw up a few things and then learn from your mistakes. But it turns out that we’re definitely not the weirdest.
Here’s a few of the strangest laws surrounding cannabis in the rest of the U.S. of A.:
NevadaThe Silver State actually has guidelines on the fonts you can use in logos, signs, and advertisements to market cannabis. It specifies that you shouldn’t use more than two fonts (or more than three colors) in a design, and it prefers “clean fonts,” i.e. ones that are sans serif — you know, the ones with extra dangly bits on the letters.
So you’re more than welcome to advertise your weed with ugly, ungainly Comic Sans, but you’ll be run out of Reno if you go with Times New Roman instead. Why is Courier verboten while Helvetica and Arial are not? We don’t know, but next time you’re in Vegas, you should write “Buy marijuana here” and print it out in Palatino (in seven different colors, no less), stick it on a door somewhere, and see what kind of hell you unleash.
MassachusettsIn the Puritan State, its illegal to advertise your marijuana on any sort of swag, including T-shirts and novelty items. If you run, say, a dispensary, you can’t put your logo on a hat or rolling papers or matches that you’d give out or sell to customers. We suppose they’re actively trying to make it as hard as possible to attract people to your shop.
If you put an image of Boston Celtics mascot Lucky the Leprechaun smoking a blunt on a T-shirt ans sell it at your shop, will you be tarred and feathered and dragged through the streets? Who knows?
Washington, D.C.Our nation’s capital specifically prohibits selling cannabis in places that sell gasoline or auto services. (*Crumples up paper with “Business idea: ‘Spliffy Lube’” written on it and angrily tosses it in wastebasket.*) Presumably, this is to keep people from getting high as they drive away from gas stations. But, like, you can totally purchase beer and alcohol there — which we’re sure nobody has *ever* consumed before or while getting behind the steering wheel of a car.
CaliforniaEarlier in the pandemic, we remember California, like Colorado, declaring dispensaries essential businesses, allowing them to operate during the shutdown — including their delivery drivers. It turns out, though, that there are super strict laws in place limiting how they could transport weed to customers. Sure, driving is fine, as is walking if they’re close enough. But aircraft, watercraft, rail, drones, human-powered vehicles, or unmanned vehicles? Nope.
You can’t deliver cannabis on by bicycle, skateboard, commuter train, kayak, or drone. But you know what they either forgot to include (or maybe consciously chose not to)? Animals. As far as we can tell, it’s totally fine to deliver weed on horseback in California.
Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to look into renting some stables in San Diego.
Nick Gonzales
