Up to Sell Marijuana? — Altria Gearing

Firm files case against owner of marijuana domain names.

Altria Group, the parent firm of tobacco firm Philip Morris USA, has filed an arbitration proceeding to get the domain names AltriaMarijuana.com and AltriaCannabis.com.

Is the firm getting ready for the day pot becomes legal? Perhaps, but the firm is probably more concerned regarding the content on the web sites. Both sites invite visitors to “Fight Against the Legalization of Marijuana” and ridicule tobacco firms as beneficiaries of legalization of the drug. Following explaining a number of bills that have been passed or introduced to legalize marijuana, the sites proclaim:

Greater than the sum of all these fears is the premonition that, when made legal, “big business,” especially those “big businesses” that profit from poisoning our society and the destroying our youth with tobacco and alcohol, will engage in and ultimately control this “multi-billion dollar” industry, furthering the decline and destruction of America at a unfathomable rate. Thus it is the mission of this website to fight the legalization and usage of marijuana/cannabis and all other intoxicating, addicting, and illicit substances.

The domain names are registered to a person in Washington, D.C., but the contact email address is for an IT/hosting firm. The web sites do not identify who is behind them.