Alaska’s marijuana advertising campaigns are becoming very creative. The Calm N Collective’s advertisement from September 25, 2018 shows a naked man lying in a cultivation facility with marijuana covering his private areas. The Alaskan Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office brought an enforcement action against the Calm N Collective licensee Ron Bass for health and safety violations. Alaska’s regulator noted that the presence of an unclothed person in the growing facility could contaminate the marijuana. A board member pointed out that the naked man also did not appear to be wearing a visitor badge as required by law.
The lawyer for Calm N Collective indicated that the picture in question did not violate the health and safety standards because the marijuana that was used to cover the man’s body was not going to be reused or sold. The marijuana was ultimately going to be ground up with garbage and other waste. Finally, the firm’s lawyer noted in the response that the health and safety standards were not violated as the gentleman in the photo “looks clean, does not have any open sores, and does not at all look ill.”