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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (April 19, 2019)
A3 THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2019 US corporations embracing 420 celebration By ALEX VEIGA Associated Press LOS ANGELES — Pot- heads have for decades cel- ebrated their love of mari- juana on April 20, but the once counter-culture celebra- tion that was all about getting stoned now is so mainstream Corporate America is starting to embrace it. No, Hallmark doesn’t yet have a card to mark “420.” But many other businesses inside and outside the mul- tibillion-dollar cannabis industry are using April 20, or 4/20, to roll out market- ing and social media messag- ing aimed at connecting with consumers driving the boom- ing market. On Saturday, Lyft is offer- ing a $4.20 credit on a single ride in Colorado and in select cities in the U.S. and Canada. Carl’s Jr. is using a Denver restaurant to market a ham- burger infused with CBD, a non-intoxicating molecule found in cannabis that many believe is benefi cial to their health. On 420 last year, Toti- no’s, a maker of frozen pizza snacks, tweeted an image of a microwave and an oven with the message: “To be blunt, pizza rolls are better when baked.” “I think brands that asso- ciate themselves with canna- bis kind of get that contact high. In other words, they’re just considered to be cooler by association,” said Kit Yar- AP Photo/Richard Vogel A marijuana lover takes a very smoky puff in Los Angeles. row, consumer psychologist at Golden Gate University. “As pot becomes more legal, more discussed, more inter- esting to people, more widely used, then 420 becomes more mainstream as well.” Marijuana normalization has snowballed since 2012, when Colorado and Wash- ington were the fi rst states to legalize recreational use. Eight more followed, includ- ing California, Oregon and Michigan. Medical mari- juana is legal in two-thirds of the states, with conser- vative-leaning Utah and Oklahoma among recent additions. Meantime, the CBD mar- ket has exploded. CBD oil can be found in candies, cof- fee and other food, drinks and dietary supplements, along with perfume, lotions, creams and soap. Propo- nents say CBD helps with pain, anxiety and infl amma- tion, though limited scien- tifi c research supports those claims. U.S. retail sales of canna- bis products jumped to $10.5 billion last year, a threefold increase from 2017, accord- ing to data from Arcview Group, a cannabis investment and market research fi rm. The fi gures do not include retail sales of hemp-derived CBD products. Ben & Jerry’s was one of the earliest big brands to fos- ter a connection with the mar- ijuana culture through mar- keting. The Vermont-based ice cream company features Cherry Garcia and Phish Food, honoring late Grate- ful Dead member Jerry Gar- cia and the band Phish. Both bands are favorites of the marijuana-smoking crowd. To mark 420 in recent years, Ben & Jerry’s debuted taco and burrito inspired ice cream sandwiches. This year the company partnered with a San Francisco Bay Area can- nabis retailer to give custom- ers who place delivery orders on Friday and Saturday a free pint of Half Baked, a combi- nation of cookie dough and fudge brownie. “We have a lot of fun, never being overt, but really playing into the moment of 420,” said Jay Curley, the company’s global head of integrated marketing. Gate Park, Hippie Hill will again be the site of a 420 celebration. Last year, more than 15,000 attended the event, which has transformed from a small informal gath- ering into a full-blown fes- tival of corporate sponsors and commercial booths sell- ing smoking devices, T-shirts and food. Roger Volodarsky, whose Los Angeles-based Puffco makes portable vaporizers, has celebrated 420 since he was a teenager. Back then, he said, “420 was the day that you splurged on yourself and got high in interesting ways. It was the day that you made a gravity bong and coughed your brains out.” Volodarksy likes that some Main Street brands are getting into the industry and the holiday. “What’s important to me about these ad campaigns is they’re speaking to people who aren’t users and they’re normalizing the space to peo- ple who aren’t users,” he said. Even as popularity grows, some companies will stay away from 420 as a market- ing tool, said Allen Adam- son, co-founder of Meta- force, a marketing consulting company. “If you’re talking about a big brand that needs to appeal to everybody and is very risk-averse, then prob- ably not,” he said. “I don’t think you’ll see large fi nan- cial institutions doing it.” Last year, Ben & Jer- ry’s also turned more seri- ous, asking consumers to call on lawmakers to expunge prior marijuana convictions and press for pardons or amnesty for anyone arrested for smoking pot. This year the company is using the hol- iday to call for criminal jus- tice reform. “We’re actually using this as an opportunity not to tell a stoner joke like we have in the past, but to raise what we see as a much more serious issue around justice,” Cur- ley said. Those in the marijuana marketplace also are ramping up advertising around 420. Much of the marketing about cannabis or related products takes the form of online ads, emails, text messages and social media. Shops typically offer discounts. Some host parties with food and enter- tainment. The larger 420 events can draw thousands of people. Verano Holdings, whose businesses include cannabis shops, sponsors street festi- vals in Chicago and Tulsa, Oklahoma, where attendees can learn about marijuana products, listen to music and grab a bite. The company expects this Saturday’s festi- val in Chicago, going on its third year, will draw more than 4,000 people. Last year, it drew 1,500, said Tim Ten- nant, Verano’s chief market- ing offi cer. In San Francisco’s Golden Brown promises substantial changes to foster care Special board to oversee system By AUBREY WIEBER and CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Oregon Capital Bureau SALEM — Gov. Kate Brown is taking another whack at reforming Ore- gon’s beleaguered foster care system. Brown announced Thurs- day that she was creat- ing a special board to over- see child welfare issues and ensure that reforms are enacted. The move came two days after advocates fi led a class-action lawsuit against the state over its treatment of the thousands of children in foster care. In recent weeks, journal- ists revealed that: • About 80 foster chil- dren were sent out of state to refurbished jails. • The state failed to report deaths of children in foster care. • A pair of casework- ers in Polk County had sex near a child while they were charged with watching the child. • A 9-year-old Oregon girl was fl own to Montana to be housed in a psychiatric residential treatment facil- ity where she was injected with Benadryl to control her behavior . There were no records of an Oregon case- worker checking in on her. When asked what spe- cifi cally prompted her move, Brown answered in generalities. “I would just say I’ve been growing increasingly concerned,” she said. Brown said her offi ce and the public have not been get- ting accurate information about the child welfare sys- tem, but said she doesn’t believe she was intention- ally misled. She said she still has faith in Fariborz Pak- seresht, the director of the state Department of Human Services. Speaking at a press con- ference, Brown said the new board, created through exec- utive order, has been in the works for a couple of weeks. “The changes in the child welfare system are going to take a lot of time, energy and resources,” Brown said. “I’m committed to mak- ing those cultural changes that need to happen.” The board will serve as a conduit between Brown and the Department of Human Services . It will work to increase the number of places where foster children can live while they’re in the state’s care, bolstering the fos- ter care system to include therapeutic foster care and services for children with special needs. The board, which will meet with the department offi cials every two weeks, also will help with transparency in deal- ing with public records and communications. Brown will lead the group, comprised of Mult- nomah County Circuit Judge Nan Waller; Ajit Jetmalani, a psychiatry professor at Ore- gon Health & Science Uni- versity; David Sanders, of Casey Family Programs; VOLUNTEER Leslie Sutton, with the Ore- gon Council on Develop- mental Disabilities; Oregon Health Authority Director Pat Allen; Matt Garrett, a former Oregon Department of Transportation director; and two more to be named soon. Brown will also form a crisis management team to implement the board’s rec- of her executive staff in the department is an unusual but warranted step. “I want someone from my executive team to be on the ground in the agency to ensure that the evaluations and recommendations of the crisis management team are being implemented as effi - ciently as possible,” Brown said. ommendations and place a member of her staff in the Department of Human Ser- vices offi ce. “I see the crisis team as a SWAT team and the over- sight board as being, frankly, the group that holds the SWAT team and the agency leadership’s feet to the fi re,” Brown said. 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