The other day we reported that if you were to post images of yourself smoking weed on Instagram, it could technically land you in trouble with the law. Turns out that Facebook is subscribed to federal law because according to reports, it seems that the social networking website has recently been deleting Facebook pages that are related to medical marijuana.According to the message Facebook sent the owners of these pages, “We remove any promotion or encouragement of drug use. Your page is currently not visible on Facebook. It looks like content on your page does not follow the Facebook Community Terms and Standards.”
This is echoed in a statement Facebook issued to Engadget, which claims that these page violated Facebook’s Community Standards which can be found here. Like we said, it is possible Facebook has decided to follow federal law instead of state law. As per our previous report, it was highlighted that there are 23 states that legally allow marijuana to be sold for medicinal purposes.
However federal law trumps state law, meaning that while local authorities might consider it legal, federal authorities like the FBI might not. Not everyone is pleased with the shut down of these pages.
According to Peter Rosenfeld who is a registered medical marijuana user in the state of New Jersey, “It seems high-handed to simply shut down important resources for sick patients without even saying why or giving organizations a way to ask for reconsideration. What better use of a social media than having sites where parents of sick children can ask questions about medication and treatments?”