Facebook and Instagram accounts for at least six marijuana companies in Massachusetts have reportedly been deactivated, including Cultivate and New England Treatment Access (NETA), which were the first two stores in the state allowed to begin selling recreational cannabis on Nov. 20.
Cultivate Chief Operating Officer Robert Lally told community members at a meeting held to discuss traffic snarls around the store in Leicester that restrictions the social media giants have put on cannabis-related content made it difficult for the dispensary to communicate with the public during its launch of adult-use MJ sales, according to the Worcester Business Journal.
Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram have a history of deactivating cannabis businesses accounts for violating the platforms’ “regulated goods policies.”
In addition to Cultivate and NETA, the Worcester Business Journal reported that social media accounts were also deactivated for:
- CommCan
- Curaleaf
- Patriot Care
- Sira Naturals
According to the Business Journal, some Massachusetts cannabis businesses have created new accounts and others plan to use Facebook’s and Instagram’s appeals processes to recover their accounts.
A spokeswoman for Curaleaf said the company’s social media pages have been shut down in the past but it has successfully appealed to have them reactivated.
