Bill to bar weed advertisements for kids needs changes, critics say

For a bill that prevents marijuana advertisers from targeting children, state Rep. Selena Bliss hopes the fourth time is the charm. If that’s going to be the case, critics say the bill needs some work.

Bliss, a Republican from Prescott, is the sponsor of House Bill 2179. Among other things, it would bar weed advertisers from using cartoons, toys and the image of Santa Claus when marketing their products and establishments. A strikingly similar bill sponsored last year by now-Arizona House Speaker Steve Montenegro failed. Two additional earlier bills also died. But Bliss’ version has a shot.

In theory, it’s a bill no one could oppose. And in principle, no one has. HB 2179 passed the House’s Health & Human Services Committee, which Bliss chairs, in a 12-0 vote on Monday. But the hearing was not without controversy. Critics who testified in the hearing noted that the bill is riddled with issues that would have outsize impacts on the hemp industry and smoke shop owners.

Specifically, in the bill’s first section, it says “only a marijuana establishment or nonprofit medical marijuana dispensary” may advertise weed paraphernalia, such as bongs and pipes, and products containing THC. That would seem to require that smoke shops and hemp products, which are not regulated the same way as marijuana dispensaries, get a dispensary’s sign-off to advertise their wares.

Timothy Sparling, a lawyer testifying on behalf of the Arizona chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the organization supports the bill’s principles, but that it needs work.

“This licensing structure, as it stands in existing Arizona law, does not apply to other markets, such as industrial hemp or hemp-derived consumable products,” Sparling said. “This bill would have the effect of drawing those products within that licensing scheme and within explicit control of the dispensary organizations.”

Hemp products, which are from a cannabis plant containing a THC concentration of 0.3% or less, are regulated differently than marijuana. But the products do contain cannabinoids, meaning they are subject to the bill, which reserves “advertising for marijuana, products containing tetrahydrocannabinol, intoxicating cannabinoids or marijuana paraphernalia” to licensed dispensaries.

Shannon Whitaker, representing the Hemp Industry Trade Association, told lawmakers the bill was a “good faith effort” to protect children but would pull hemp under the dispensaries’ umbrella.

“We are respectfully in opposition, but we’ve had a conversation just recently with the stakeholders of this group and might be preparing a potential floor amendment for this bill that addresses my clients’ concerns,” Whitaker said.

Changes needed

The bill’s mention of marijuana paraphernalia also is driving concerns from smoke shop owners such as Jason Horn, who spoke in opposition to the bill at the hearing.

“Our smoke shops are small businesses owned by residents of Arizona, employing citizens of Arizona,” Horn told lawmakers. “If you took this bill and passed it, it would effectively shut down smoke shops from promoting their products.”

Julie Gunnigle, NORML’s legal director for Arizona, expressed the same concern last year that requiring smoke shops to get permission from dispensaries to advertise their products was nonsensical.

“We’ve never seen anything like this in at least the marijuana market where you’re giving one industry control over another,” Gunnigle told Phoenix New Times in March 2024. “What market incentive could a dispensary possibly have for approving paraphernalia advertising that’s not being sold in their shops?”

Lawmakers seemed responsive to amending the bill to create carve-outs for hemp products and smoke shops. State Rep. Matt Gress, a swing district Republican representing Phoenix, pressed Arizona Dispensaries Association lobbyist Pele Peacock Fischer on that subject.

“If a shop that is not a dispensary is selling paraphernalia, they wouldn't be able to advertise it at all. They wouldn’t even be able to put up a poster of a picture of whatever this paraphernalia is in their shop,” Gress said to Fischer. “Is that true?”

Fischer pivoted, saying that smoke shops are “not licensed or regulated, so there’s no way to restrict what they advertise or to go after them.”

That’s an issue that will have to be worked out by lawmakers. While the committee unanimously voted to pass the bill, several noted they wanted to see it altered. Bliss said she wanted to make some changes, including striking the word “promote” from the actions reserved exclusively for dispensaries.

“We’ll still retain the word ‘advertise,’ and at the end of the day, that’s what this is all about,” Bliss said in the hearing.

Bliss did not respond to questions from New Times about which stakeholders she has been working with while ironing out changes and what other changes to expect in an amended bill. But Sully Sullivan, the executive director of HITA, suggested to New Times that Bliss is working to exclude the hemp industry from her bill, possibly by running a separate hemp-specific measure.

"HITA strongly advocates for stringent packaging and advertising regulations to protect children from any adult-use products,” Sullivan said. “We thank Rep. Bliss for her leadership in uniting stakeholders to develop a solution for HB 2179 that reflects our dedication to regulating the hemp-derived products outside of the (Arizona Medical Marijuana Act) marijuana laws.”