San Jose Lights Up

Every major city in America has a free, tabloid style weekly that covers restaurants, theatre, music and movies such as the Village Voice in New York, the L.A. Weekly in Los Angeles, the Bay Guardian in San Francisco and even the Bohemian in l'il ol' Sonoma County.

San Jose's arts and culture weekly is called Metro.  It's free, widely distributed and occasionally carries an interesting or noteworthy story that doesn't involve high tech.

These weeklies are free to readers to encourage as high a circulation as possible, which makes them more attractive to local advertisers.  The back pages of these weeklies are stuffed with ads.  If you'd looked at them about ten years ago, you would have seen some classified ads and LOTS of personal ads that made it seem like EVERYONE in that town was looking for someone special.  Many of those people had someone special and were still looking for someone special. 

"You - a quiet librarian type who loves walks along the beach, yoga and a biker guy with lots of tattoos.  Me - ruggedly handsome Josh Brolin type who loves to ride and party, looking for that perfect gal to ride off with me on the back of my hog."  You get the picture.

Then the internet dating sites came along and took those personal ads with them.  So the weeklies sent out their sales people and they reeled in the escort services (or so I'm told).  The backs of these weeklies were filled with enticing ads for one beautiful lady (or man) after another, dying to spend the evening with one special person - you (or so I'm told).

You can't buy love, but you could rent it.

A county by county map of the Prop. 215 voting.

Then the escort ad traffic drifted over to the internet (or so I'm told), and once again the weeklies were forced to send out their sales forces to find a new gravy train.

Eureka!  They realized that the voters of California had helpfully passed a state initiative (Proposition 215) in California that allowed for the medical use of marijuana.  It passed rather easily with 56% of the vote. 

The initiative didn't really cover how marijuana was to be cultivated, regulated or sold for this medicinal use. So-called "medical" co-ops and collectives started popping up in every city in California.

Which brings us back to the weeklies.  I've noticed in the San Jose Metro that the growth of medical marijuana clinics in and around San Jose is exploding.  A recent story said the number of these clinics has DOUBLED in San Jose in the past two years.  There are now nearly a hundred in San Jose alone.  While it's positive to have ANY business showing signs of growth in our current economy, the medicinal marijuana industry is now reminiscent of the Wild, Wild West.  If those old gunfighters had just, like, mellowed out, dude.

And in this week's edition of the Metro, the ads for the marijuana clinics in San Jose take up ten full pages of the weekly paper.  A one time full page color ad buy in the Metro is $2,300.  That's a lot of mary jane moolah.  In all fairness,  it goes down to $1,900 an issue if you buy one full page ad a month.  Once you start buying full page medical marijuana ads, it's tough to stop at just one, right?

What's interesting if you start examining these ads is that these "collectives" are ALL OVER TOWN.  They are everywhere.  Presumably with a McDonald's or 7-11 located right next door.  It's another Gold Rush, only this time it's Acapulco gold,  in every medium to large-sized city in California.

There are virtually zero zoning laws and regulations regarding these clinics.  Certainly nothing on a statewide basis.

I find it hard to believe that the actual usage of these sweet herbs has dramatically increased since the passage of Proposition 215, there doesn't seem to be much research or data on any of this stuff because the government doesn't want to do any research on this stuff.

There may actually be a benefit to users being guaranteed a consistent, safe supply of the drug.  I assume all the competition is keeping the cost down, which lessens the illegal trafficking and cash-starved local governments could use the tax dollars.

But it just seems odd when marijuana clinics are the most robust retail outlets in San Jose.  They're definitely giving Starbucks a run for their money.  Care for a hemp Grande?

And if you're looking for someone to do something about it, don't look to Dave.  Dave who?  Dave's not here, man.