Pubdate: Thu, 05 Sep 2013
Source: USA Today (US)
Copyright: 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/625HdBMl
Website: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/index.htm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466
Author: Bruce Horovitz
Page: 1B

PRO-POT BILLBOARD IN COLO. UPS ANTE AGAINST NFL

Football League'S Policy Contradicts Law That Allows Marijuana Use

Thursday's NFL season opener just got hit with an end-around PR play
from a harsh critic that's ultrasavvy at garnering media attention.

The Marijuana Policy Project announced Wednesday that it has posted a
giant billboard advertisement - within eye-shot of Denver's Sports
Authority Field at Mile High Stadium - that warns the National
Football League: "Stop Driving Players to Drink."

The 48-by-14-foot billboard, which shows a football leaning against a
foaming beer glass, advises: "A safer choice is now legal here."
Colorado, after all, is one of two states (along with Washington
state) that have recently legalized marijuana use by adults 21 and
older.

"NFL players are being told that they can go out and get completely
drunk, but face no punishment from the league," says Mason Tvert, a
spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project. "But if a player gets
caught using marijuana, they could be fined hundreds of thousands of
dollars, forced to sit out games and deemed a troublemaker."

Because marijuana is now legal for adults in Colorado and Washington -
and is not a performance-enhancing substance - "we don't think the NFL
should be punishing players for using marijuana," Tvert says.

For the NFL, one of the most successful and powerful behemoths in the
entertainment world, the illtimed billboard is a painfully public
reminder that a longtime league policy that prohibits marijuana use
for all players is arguably in conflict with the two new laws.

The billboard also is a visual pie-in-the-face to the big beermakers -
particularly the NFL's big beer sponsor, Anheuser-Busch, maker of
Budweiser and Bud Light.

For the Marijuana Policy Project, it's a virtual PR gold mine, almost
certain to gain the attention of national media attending the league's
high-profile opening game Thursday night between the Denver Broncos
and the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens.

The move comes just weeks after the same advocacy group posted a
high-profile, pro-marijuana video ad outside an entrance to - but off
the grounds of - NASCAR's big Brickyard 400 race at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway. The ad stayed up part of one day before it was taken
down.

But, for the moment, at least, the much larger billboard company
that's posting this ad has no plans to remove it. "We're putting it up
like we put up a campaign for any other company," says Paul Zapata,
the salesman at Lamar Advertising, who sold the billboard space to the
advocacy group for about $5,000.

Executives from Lamar, one of the nation's largest outdoor ad
companies, did not respond to interview requests. Anheuser-Busch
declined to comment. NFL executives declined to specifically comment
on the ad, but league spokesman Brian McCarthy says, "We do not plan
on changing our policies."
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