Marijuana Goes Mainstream: Newport Cigarettes to Introduce 'Marijuana Cigarettes'

When social conservatives told libertarians (of which I am one!) and liberals about their fears that the legalization of marijuana would cause a domino effect, they were blasted for supposedly using a “slippery slope” argument. “Stop nagging,” we told those conservatives. “It won’t be that bad! It’s just that people who use marijuana right now won’t be punished for it. Won’t that be a considerable improvement?’

Well, perhaps not so much:

Newport Cigarettes, one of the world’s most popular cigarette brands, announced today that they will join the marijuana legalization trend and start producing marijuana cigarettes.

Reynolds American Inc. Chief Marketing Executive Lawrence Harrison said in an interview, reports OrganicAndHealthy.org, that Newport has monitored the marijuana market for quite some time. Once the soft drug was legalized in Washington and Colorado, the cigarette company decided to go all in and start selling marijuana cigarettes.

And here’s the kicker: although advertising for tobacco products is illegal nowadays, the company has “set aside an enormous $7 billion advertising budget to market the new ‘Newport Nirvana’ brand.” Newport is currently in negotiations with “major networks and publishers” to “market” the product. In fact, Newport has already started advertising on billboards and in magazines in both Colorado and Washington.

Although I’m a libertarian conservative myself, I do believe that this development should give us pause, not because marijuana is so dangerous (it isn’t), but because I and other libertarians have long advocated legalizing all drugs. If that results in drugs producers having the right to actively promote their product, we may have to reconsider. After all, I’m quite sure none of us wants to live in a world in which heroine dealers can put up billboards telling our youth that “using heroine is cool!”