Weedmaps Media, Inc. a subsidiary of General Cannabis, the Newport Beach-based outfit that owns the world-famous marijuana dispensary and delivery service locating website Weedmaps.com, has purchased Marijuana.com, a pot-related website and news forum. The company plans to revamp the website in January with “all new content” that will include “user-generated reviews, videos and community content,” according to an Orange County Register story yesterday.
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Perhaps because of its iconic domain name (rather than the quality of the content) Marijuana.com boasts some 3.5 million website visits per month, the Register says, compared to Weedmaps' 2 million. The purchase appears to cement General Cannabis' nationwide domination of online marijuana-related consumer services, as illustrated by the fact that users will be able to register and log in to both websites with the same profile. You can read the Weekly's previous updates on the company's recent financial successes, which fly in the face of the bad news that seems to be throwing the medical cannabis industry and its publishing allies into doubt these days, here and here.
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).