The social media giant Facebook is reportedly deleting marijuana dispensary pages that sell cannabis for medical purposes in one of the US states. Facebook has come up with this idea in spite of the fact that selling medical marijuana is legalized in New Jersey, where the marijuana pages are being deleted by the website.
Medical marijuana has been used across the globe for centuries for medicinal as well as recreational purposes. However, the use of marijuana is restricted in recent decades following warning from researchers on the possible threats of cannabis use.
Now, Facebook is removing marijuana business home pages in spite of laws in New Jersey and 23 other states in the US, legalizing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, according to NJ.COM . Medicinal cannabis pages on Facebook of an owner of three garden dispensaries and handful of others were deleted on Tuesday.
This action made dispensary owners and sick patient that rely on marijuana, frustrated, as the Facebook pages were their only source of updates on latest trend that help alleviate their debilitating symptoms. On Wednesday, when Alex Zaleski, representative of breakwater wellness and treatment center in Cranbury and compassionate sciences alternative treatment center in Bellmawr tried opening their home pages, they were left with Facebook response as "WE remove any promotion or encouragement of drug use."
"Your page is currently not visible on Facebook. It looks like content on your page does not follow the Facebook Community Terms and Standards." "This site does not allow ads that promote the sale or use of . . .illegal, prescription, or recreational drugs" according to the sites advertising policies page.
"It seems high-handed to simply shut down important resources for sick patients without even saying why or giving organizations a way to ask for reconsideration," said, Peter Rosenfeld, one of the 5,668 registered patients in the New Jersey state. "It makes me question whether any of us should continue to use FaceBook. Maybe it is time for people to migrate to new ways of communicating," Rosenfeld said.
Whereas, there are people that are happy with the Facebook's initiative. Kevin Sabet, one of the most prominent opponents of marijuana legalization says "he is thrilled that Facebook is removing marijuana business pages," according to US News .
Facebook is the major source of information for the people that depend on marijuana as laws prohibit advertising on them, stated Michael Nelson, the general manager of Compassionate Sciences Alternative Treatment Center. Facebook's initiative in deleting medical marijuana homepages without prior warning appears to have affected a bunch of people that relied on the site.
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