This fifteen second Flash animation from NORML touting the economic benefit of marijuana legalization was too objectionable to CBS, who canceled NORML’s contract to place the following on the giant “Super Billboard” in Times Square:
We also noted the hypocrisy of telling us that NORML’s ad was too contentious an issue ad for the billboard while running – on Super Bowl Sunday – the controversial Focus on the Family anti-abortion ad featuring college QB Tim Tebow and his mother:
It does not matter which side of the abortion debate you lie, you can certainly agree that abortion is one of the most contentious and controversial issues of our times. NORML, Focus on the Family, and the African-American anti-abortion outreach group Life Education and Research Network that funded these latest Atlanta billboards are all non-profit advocacy organizations lobbying for very controversial issues.
However, the anti-abortion groups seem to have no trouble getting their message out on CBS airwaves and billboards, while NORML is denied four times in two years the opportunity to pay to use the same airwaves and billboards.
I also find it interesting that the groups whose messages are accepted by CBS are trying to criminalize a legal activity (abortion), a policy position only supported by 42% of the American people surveyed in the latest Quinnipiac University poll; whereas NORML’s message of legalization rejected by CBS is a policy position supported by 44% to 53% of the American people surveyed lately by Gallup and Angus Reid. Even more interesting when CBS itself polled support for legalization at 41%.