In a new twist on the interstate pressures of adjacent cannabis markets, the Connecticut attorney general is irked over what he sees as advertising encroachment over the state line. Massachusetts cannabis companies have purchased billboard space along highways that run through Connecticut; citing his state’s laws on the matter, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong wants the ads taken down.
Under the provisions of its new adult-use law, Connecticut allows cannabis businesses to advertise only when the target audience is made up of at least 90% adults 21 and older. On the freeway, that’s pretty much out of the question.
On top of that, Tong has asserted that these billboards may violate federal law by encourage interstate transport of cannabis products.
One business owner has no plans to accede.
“I believe that this is too far reaching of an insinuation that they have made against our company and other advertisers, against marketing firms and against the other folks who have also gotten those letters,” Erik Williams, chief operating officer of Canna Provisions in Holyoke, Mass., told WGGB.
