The ball wasn’t the only thing that dropped in Times Square this past rainy New Year’s Eve in New York City.
For the first time ever, cannabis companies dropped some ads on the millions of revelers milling beneath the Big Apple’s flashing digital billboards.
The Denver Business Journal called Times Square’s brightly-lit billboards, which flash day and night, some of the country’s most visible commercial real estate. On New Year’s Eve, billions around the world are watching the ball drop on the “busiest night of the year.”
And, a Colorado CBD company led the pack.
“A year ago, we were denied advertising in Times Square,” said Chris Husong, director of sales and marketing for Elixinol, a CBD company with distribution in 40 countries.
“What a difference a year makes,” said Husong. “We join the entire hemp community in celebrating what’s to come in 2019.”
Other cannabis companies joined Elixinol at the Times Square extravaganza to ring in 2019. They included Cannabis Network Media, Curved Papers, My Bud Vase, MTracTech, and Restorative Botanicals.
The change in attitude has everything to do with the signing into law of the 2018 Farm Bill on Dec. 20, 2918. The move essentially legalized industrial hemp and by extension CBD products.
It also has to with that fact that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he intends to introduce legislation to legalize recreational marijuana early in the 2019. Cuomo, re-elected to a third term in November 2018, reiterated that pledge during his inaugural address on January 1, 2018.
Legalizing cannabis will bring “justice and new economic opportunity not for rich corporations, but for the poor communities that paid too high a price for too long.” Gov. Cuomo also pardoned several people convicted of cannabis and other drug offenses, with a promise of more to come.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has also said he supports legalization of cannabis and expungement of non-violent pot offenses.
