After Fucking Over the Pot Industry Paypal Co-Founder Invests Millions
UPDATE: We published this article on Jan 12, 2015 at 12:47 PST, hours later PayPal retaliated by freezing our account. At 5:20 PST on 12/12/15 we received a letter saying we violated their Acceptable Use Policy (again) regarding the sale of our upcoming ROLLING PAPERS in our Big Cartel store—now closed before we had a chance to bring them to market.
Last year PayPal froze our account. They claim we were violating their Acceptable Use Policy even though we weren’t selling “narcotics, steroids, controlled substances or drug paraphernalia.” We were selling POSTERS. However, PayPal claims that stuffstonerslike.com “promotes the use of illegal drugs,” so the popular online payment service banned us from using their services on our site and then continued to keep our money until we removed all mention of PayPal from our website.
In fact PayPal has frozen the accounts of several marijuana-related businesses keeping their money or making it extremely difficult for them to retrieve it. According to CannabisCulture “PayPal takes voluntary action against marijuana-related sites and individuals who visit them.” Such was the case with Planet Skunk, an Irish cannabis-related site. In 2003, Planet Skunk’s site administrator received simultaneous account cancellation notices from PayPal who closed the company’s account without notice and would not give them the money in their account for 180 days.
In December 2003 PayPal prevented CannabisCulture publisher Marc Emery from using PayPal to receive donations to his Pot-TV.net Internet media network. PayPal informed Emery of its suspension of his account “privileges” without prior notice, claiming that Pot-TV.net was “acquiring and promoting drug paraphernalia.”
Bubbleman, the maker of Bubble Bags used for making water hash claims PayPal suspended his account in 2004, and kept $10,000 of his money for 180 days. Renee Boje, a Canada-based drug war refugee who retails legal medicinal herbs through her innovative Urban Shaman Entheobotanicals store fell victim to a PayPal account closure. And in March 2005, Dutch cannabis entrepreneur Nol Van Schaik received the same threatening form letter we got from PayPal, however he complied with PayPal’s corporate drug war policy and shut down his site..
So now after fucking over the marijuana community for years a venture capital firm run by Peter Thiel, the founder of the weed-hatin’ PayPal, is investing in the marijuana industry? What. The. Fuck, man. In September Thiel slandered stoners by bashing Twitter’s executives saying there was “probably a lot of pot-smoking going on there.” And this is the next big dude poised to profit from pot?
According to: UPI “Founders Fund, which has previously invested in Facebook, Lyft, SpaceX and Spotify, recently announced a multimillion dollar investment into Privateer Holdings. Privateer Holdings is an equity firm with investments in the marijuana industry.
“Founders Fund is known for making some of the most lucrative and radically transformational investments of the past decade,” said Privateer Holdings CEO Brendan Kennedy. “With this investment they are signaling that they, like us, believe that the end of prohibition and the social harms it causes is inevitable.”
What about all the social and economic harms caused by PayPal’s voluntary policing of anti-pot products and companies? In a climate where the banking sector won’t work with cannabis companies PayPal further victimizes marijuana businesses to clear the playing field for themselves and now expects the cannabis community to welcome them into the fold?
Since the founder of the pot-hatin’PayPal now wants to profit off of pot, wonder if this means PayPal is going to get in on the game too and change their anti-pot policy. How do you feel about big money getting into the marijuana game? Let us know in the comments below.
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12 Responses to “After Fucking Over the Pot Industry PayPal Co-Founder Invests Millions”
Bruce Cain
The best “final solution” for Cannabis Production & Distribution
In the following discussion excerpt we are asked to consider Chinese Cannabis Oil.
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Friar Ryan Jeff Jonaitis & J Craig Canada
What do you think about the infamous Silk Road?
I understand that you both are heavy handed defenders of the medical marijuana industry.
But what do you think about how Silk Road supplies medicine to cancer patients and others in states that do not have any MMJ laws to offer dispensaries and such?
Would you say that Silk Road is a good thing for patients, or not?
Like · Reply · 10 hrs
American Cannabis Foundation be very cautious of Hemp CBD oil from CHINA, IT IS NOT Safe for humans or Animals. Most American Companies are getting it from China.
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No one asked me. LOL.
Frankly I’m sick and tired of all the opportunism. As a aging Hippie, now 60, I have not forgotten my roots. In essence they called it “weed” in the 60’s why? Because it grew like a weed. Any moron can grow Cannabis that may not be great: but certainly smokable. On top of that us Hippies believe in local economies, self sufficiency, and insulating ourselves from undue control from our government.
So as all that sinks in here is what I think to be the ultimate “solution.” And as you read it let me make clear the foreign, or corporate, control of the market (production/distribution) should NEVER be considered. Just in case that is not clear. So here is a thumbnail sketch of the best solution. By all means send me your challenges to this model. But if you see the elegance of this solution, please pass this on. I think the lingering WAR over the control of Cannabis in American has not even yet begun. But the fuse is already lit as more an more consumers are shunning high cost dispensary product for “home grown” product. And that is as it should be, as that is how it has been for over 50 years.
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Frankly I think the best solution is the old Hippie Distribution System that has facilitated production and distribution for at least 50 years. Already I’ve read many articles on CO where more and more are foregoing the dispensary for the “home grower” and I think that is about perfect.
My recommendations (again):
* All Cannabis must be grown in the US by Legal Citizens
* 2-4 1000 W bloom lamps per household
* No taxes, no regulations, no government control
* No write-offs for nutrients, electricity, water etc.
This is MERP2 . . . as the final touches slowly come into place. It creates an absolute “free and fair” market, keeps the government, Big Pharma, Big Tobacco out of the market, and protects between 4-16 million “home growers” jobs nation wide.
You could have farmers markets where those that don’t have a clientele could sell but the owners of the market could also only have 2-4 lamps. You could have businesses set up to process the Simpson Oil, Wax for those that don’t want to do it at home.
What is not to like? LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra2fkYAdhDs
YourSiteSucks
i own a marijuana related website too and have been able to work with PayPal to get my account back. It’s fucks like you that ruins shit for us when you write articles like this. You better take this down before you ruin it for the entire industry. Quit these dumbass stories fuck nut.
Larz
Lemme get this straight: So Thiel made Paypal with Elon Musk, and then they sold PayPal. Thiel went on to Founders Fund and invested in the companies listed in this article. Musk went on to Space X, Sun City, and Tesla Motors. Neither men are in control of PayPal.
Yet, the author points the blame at Thiel for PayPal’s current policies?
Should we damn JFK for FEMA’s incompetence in New Orleans following the hurricane Katrina disaster? JFK laid the foundation for what is now FEMA, so blame must be laid on him as a result of FEMA’s policies. Well, according to the logic of this article, yeah, to hell with JFK!
don
We are in the medical marijuana educational program educating people that want to get into the industry and how to do it legally and compliantly, what upsets me was similar situation that Paypal also put a hold on our account (just trying to have a seminar on education that is all legal) , i have no respect for PayPal and do not do business with them or anyone that uses them, if others would stop using Paypal maybe they would get the message, pass this on to show that the big dog can also take a tumble.Paypal may be able to pull this off in the USA but in Canada where it is legal it is time companies go after them to get their arrogance out of Canada . D.S.
Stoner Stuff
Thiel implemented the anti-weed policies that are still in place, so why not blame him? Interesting take, Larz, but to complete your point…JFK would have to rise from the dead and prepare to profit from policies (he implemented) that created an unfair advantage.
Stoner Stuff
What’s the URL of your site? Is it an anti-weed site or some shit?
bradofcanada
Hey man,dont try and get peeps to fuck us around just because the states is Dickered.
MICHAEL STEWART
PAYPAL SUCKS!!! IF you are the person who is telling this guy his site sucks and he is ruining the business that your in which you claim is the marijuana industry we need you to see if you can partner up with the guy who owns paypal or at least IT SEEMS TO ME YOU ARE a greedy ass like him. OH I FORGOT IT I ALL ABOUT U..GT OUT OF TH USINESS DUMBWAD. I hope I never have to do business with u I hope you go down…idiot……PAYPAL SUCKS
Auction Essistance
Not surprising that PayPal freezez, limits & bans accounts of the big players. Seems more like a publicity stunt thnn anything.
Lari Bollinger
I just did this only yesterday with the same bullcrap from them. I told them I would take their email telling me to remove drugs from my website and from my ebay account to a court and settle with a jury on who owns the patent to cannabidiol. They had ceased funds and then made them unavailable from both sides. My money sat there for nearly 2 months while he collected interest on it. Etsy is just as bad and and has yet to release my money from that site. It is hard enough to start a business these days of any sort. But a cannabis business gets no financial support if you are a little guy. Sp screw paypal and if you are having the same trouble try using Stripe.com. They pay fast and consistently.
Lari Bollinger
Paypal did in fact seize our money just 2 weeks ago after shutting my paypal off untill I removed a paypal logo from my site that was NOT even there. I used paypal for a few weeks when I opened the site until they called me a drug dealer. Now they are just straight up calling me a liar and keep my February profits for 6 months. They have however fucked over the wrong hippy as I am planning on filing a civil suit to get my monies and interest returned to me before the 6 months comes to pass. I will spank them fuckers with a little thing called billable hours from their legal department as lawyers love to spend, spend, spend their client’s cash in the form of discovery and motions at hundreds of dollars per hour. This will be the hardest money they hijacked to date as I will file. Mark Emory won’t do shit about this and neither will the rest or they would have filed by now. Peace and keep the medicine flowing.
Jill
That’s the thing about PayPal, they can be veru untrustworthy and they can do pretty much anything they want because they are a privately owned company with no government involvement like Banks do.
Whenever I use PayPal, I always to go PayPal Forums to get advice and make sure that I can make my Paypal account correctly.