Rolling
Stone, 18 October 1969, p. 10.
GREAT
DOPE PURGE OF 1969
[...]
"Cigarette makers," began a remarkable story in Business Week, "now
suffering through their second consecutive year of falling sales, may take a
closer look at something they once swore they would never resort to in order to
hypo sales -- marijuana." The story went on to suggest there might be
larger profits than anyone had suspected in legal, commercial grass, and told
how a number of good dope names ("Acapulco Gold," "Morocco Red")
had apparently been registered by tobacco manufacturers. Nowhere in the story
did Business Week's tone imply that mass distribution of pot for profit might
be an evil thing. [...]
[Rolling
Stone readers who didn't also read Business Week -- most of them, I would guess
-- might have been led to believe by that brief reference to the registering of
"good dope names" that the latter magazine gave credence to such
rumors, which it didn't. The following excerpts from the Business Week article were
cobbled together from various Google Book snippets. -- bc]
Business
Week, 6 September 1969, p 28.
Will
cigarettes take to pot?
[...]
What's more, according to the underground grapevine, the major cigarette
companies are just waiting for the day pot is legalized so they can start
producing grass-laced smokes.
"I
know for a fact that the big companies are experimenting and have brand names already
decided," declares Gene Guerrero, editor of the Great Speckled Bird, Atlanta's underground
newspaper. Adds David Drake, a bearded 1969 University of Wisconsin
graduate in fine arts: "I've heard that the names Acapulco Gold and Tijuana
Gold have already been copyrighted." And a miniskirted New
York City flower child avows that "one of the leading
cigarette companies -- I think it's American -- has bought large plots of land in
Louisiana, Mexico,
and Central America specifically for growing
pot." [...]
Such
rumors have been growing for the past year or so, and they are obviously
disconcerting to tobacco men. Says one executive, who would rather remain
anonymous, "We have enough trouble dealing with the cigarette health scare
without selling drugs, too." Another adds categorically: "No company
in the industry has had anything to do with marijuana, nor does anyone want to."
Others term the rumors "ridiculous" and "blatantly false."
Despite
repeated denials, however, the rumors flourish, and not just in the underground
press alone. Last year, the New York Knickerbocker, a local tabloid, ran an
article stating that American Tobacco Co. had registered the names "Acapulco
Gold" and "Morocco Red" just in case marijuana become legalized.
American immediately denied this and branded the story as "nothing short of
irresponsible reporting." And a check with the U.S. Patent Office, where
tobacco men have registered hundreds of never-used names over the years, reveals
such exotic potential brands as Luv and Laredo
-- but nothing of recent vintage that would directly connote marijuana. [...]
