New York Times runs full-page pro-marijuana ad in Sunday edition

The New York Times featured a full-page ad in support of marijuana in its Sunday edition; the ad follows a series of editorials in the paper issuing calls to repeal the federal ban on medical and recreational use of marijuana — arguing it inflicted “great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol.”

Sunday’s ad promoting the website Leafly.com, which helps users locate medical marijuana dispensaries and choose strains, shows a woman jogging past a brownstone near a professionally dressed man with a paper under his arm.

“Ian chose an indica cannabis strain to relieve his MS symptoms,” the ad said. “While fighting cancer, Molly preferred a sativa cannabis.”

Chief executive of Seattle-based Privateer Holdings, Brendan Kennedy, which placed the ad, said the decision to depict working people was intentional, “This product and this industry are still depicted as sub-culture or counter culture. That’s just not the reality.”

New York legalized medical marijuana last month, and in 2012, Washington and Colorado became the first two states to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

An April poll by Pew Research showed that the majority of Americans, at 54 percent, support marijuana legalization — marking a significant change in public opinion since 1969 when Pew first asked the question and only 12 percent favored legalization.

Though medical marijuana and recreational marijuana use is legal in certain states, both are still illegal under federal law, and the Drug Enforcement Agency has occassionally butted heads with businesses legally operating on a state level, in some cases raiding the stores. Marijuana advocates have argued that the disconnect between state and federal law unfairly allows the DEA to target law-abiding citizens.

In recent months, Justice Department Officials have banned federal prosecutors from using federal resources on individuals operating within the bounds of state laws and repealing the federal ban on marijuana completely has increasingly entered public discourse.

Last Sunday, the New York Times editorial board began a six-part series calling for the repeal of a federal ban on marijuana.

“It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished,” The New York Times wrote in the first article of the series.

“It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol.”

An anti-marijuana legalization ad was featured in Saturday’s edition of the paper placed by the group, Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

“The legalization of marijuana is ushering in an entirely new group of corporations whose primary source of revenue is a highly-habit forming product,” the ad said.

With wire services