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.
Brown said placing one
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