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“How late can I call? Do you call me or do I call you? Is Tweed a codename?”

These are just some of the rather cheeky slogans being displayed in Ontario on billboards, at bus stops and online, courtesy of Canada’s largest pot company, Canopy Growth. The advertising campaign is a bold and clever attempt at promoting Canopy’s most popular recreational cannabis brand, Tweed, without explicitly mentioning what exactly Tweed is selling.

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In the heart of Toronto’s trendy Queen West neighbourhood, cannabis producer MedReleaf is employing a similar marketing tactic. The pot company is occupying a storefront that is handing out free cans of San Rafael ’71 beer, which, come Oct.17, will morph into a cannabis brand, with a full range of strains for recreational use. It is yet another attempt by a licensed producer to promote its recreational weed brand, without really saying that’s it’s weed.

“The LPs are getting very creative,” said Rebecca Brown, founder of Crowns Creative, an advertising agency geared to the cannabis industry. “We suspect that companies are taking advantage of the pre-October 17th legal vacuum to undertake activities they may not risk undertaking post-October 17th.”