Trademarking street names of marijuana

This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

Some health advocates have claimed that the tobacco industry has trademarked the street names of various types of marijuana for use if and when marijuana ever becomes legalized. While not mentioning specific companies or names trademarked, this report confirms that this is true. It broadly assesses the tobacco industry's potential to fill a market for legalized marijuana, and even goes so far as to predict the value a legalized marijuana market would have for the tobacco industry:

"[Marijuana] is the recreational drug; the choice of a significant minority of the population...The trend in liberalization of drug laws reflect the overall change in our value system. It also has important implications for the tobacco industry in terms of an alternative product line. (The tobacco companies) have the land to grow it, the machines to roll it and package it [and] the distribution to market it" (Reference 20). In fact, some firms have registered trademarks which are taken directly from marijuana street jargon. These tradenames are used currently on little known legal products, but could be switched if and when marijuana is legalized. Estimates indicate that the market in legalized marijuana might be as high as $10 billion annually...

The discussion of drug use, and cultural attitudes toward drug use, including marijuana, starts on the page marked 56. The document image requires rotating from page to page in order to view it. To do this, use the "Rotate" (arrow) function in Adobe Acrobat.

Title A TECHNOLOGICAL FORECAST OF THE FUTURE ENVIRONMENT AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY
Date 19761011
Type MARKETING REPORT; BIBLIOGRAPHY; CHART; GRAPH; LIST
Bates 779122607/2901
Collection Brown & Williamson
Pages 295
URL: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/grb10f00

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