Marlboro Marijuana Cigarettes – Are These the Real Thing?
You may or may not have heard about Marlboro's purported announcement that they'll be manufacturing marijuana cigarettes. Despite your opinions on the merits of sticky icky ciggies, this has been proven to be a hoax.
An original report on Abril Uno was the source of the hoax. The story claimed that Marlboro's Vice President of Marketing Serafin Norcik said that the company had been "high on the idea of marketing cannabis, and has been monitoring the market for some time."
Right off the bat, the site's name should have tipped you off that this story wasn't on the level, since "Abril Uno" translates to April 1st, the day on which pranks are pulled aplenty. Still, the story looked fairly legit, offering all sorts of "facts" that would back up the supposed announcement. They even said that Philip Morris, Marlboro's parent company, had even set aside a $15 billion advertising budget in order to promote the product, which was dubbed "Marlboro M."
The article cited the recent moves towards the legalization of marijuana in states like Colorado and Washington as the company's catalyst for wanting to get the product off the ground. As you might have guessed, this news set the Internet ablaze, with people of all sorts of opinions sounding off.
It might take a little while for everyone to come down from this news, but suffice it to say that products like this fake one are not outside the realm of possibility if the push for legalization spreads across the nation. Maybe in the near future, that Photoshopped box of marijuana cigarettes could become a reality.