Google Fires Up Dope Support: Donates $120,000 To Medical Marijuana Advocacy Group

Marijuana.com

Believe it or not? Google is stepping up… and seemingly doing the right thing. Michigan cancer patients who are surfing the internet, searching for a lifeline of information and turn to Google. Searching such phrases as ”chemotherapy helps nausea,” are currently being bombarded by a plethora of optimistic sounding option for treatment, including OTC prescription pills, varying types of skin creams and patches — as well as the occasional holistic remedy – used to keep vomiting to a minimum. However, in just a few short weeks thats all about to change. By the end of July 2013 – If you search Google for the same query as before… your results will include a new, slightly more controversial addition - Medicinal Cannabis.

The change comes courtesy of the charitable unit of Google, which last week gifted a Michigan medical marijuana advocacy group $120,000 worth of its services. As part of the grant, the group, Michigan Compassion, will be able to promote medical marijuana use through Google’s popular AdWords platform — the plain-text advertisements that pop up to the right side of any given search result.

Michigan Compassion does not sell marijuana but connects patients and growers, and it says the ads will appear alongside searches likely to be made by chemotherapy patients.

“The goal is to link the negative effects of chemotherapy and the positive effects of cannabis,” Amish Parikh, vice-president of Michigan Compassion, told The Huffington Post.

The ads’ value is small in the scheme of Google’s AdWords program, which brings in over $40 billion per year in revenue, but they represent a change for the Mountain View, Calif. firm, which has a strict policy against hosting ads for marijuana-related searches.

Google’s new generosity toward marijuana advocates fits neatly in Silicon Valley, however, where tech companies and their employees have been quietly contributing to cannabis activism, an area attorney involved in the marijuana legalization movement told The Huffington Post.

A spokeswoman for Google declined to comment on whether the grant made to Michigan Compassion meant the company was taking an advocacy position in favor of medical marijuana. AdWords has a policy against allowing advertisements for drugs and drug paraphernalia, but is allowing the Michigan Compassion ads since the organization does not directly supply such products. Google does not allow advertisers to link their ads to searches with words like “cannabis” and “marijuana.” Source

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