• by Val Brickates Kennedy , February 6, 2014

"Banned in Boston" may no longer apply to ads for weed.

Boston's Greater Media has begun airing ads by New England Grass Roots Institute, a Quincy, Mass.-based organization that offers classes in the cultivation, administration and management of marijuana -- for medical purposes, that is. 

The ads reportedly began running last weekend on Greater Media's rock station WBOS (92.9) and its R&B sibling, WBQT (96.9). 

Mass. voters approved legalization of cannabis for medicinal use last November. Under the new law, licensed dispensaries can grow and sell pot as long as they operate as non-profits. About 20 dispensaries have been licensed so far. 

The new law also places restrictions on advertising. Ads cannot promote marijuana for recreational use, cannot feature young people and cannot show smoking products, according to statements made by the Mass. Department of Health.

Station spokesmen have been careful to point out that the ads are by a non-profit group that provides classes on medical marijuana use, not for the dispensaries themselves. 

But that hasn't chilled out Mass. lawmakers.

“It seems that this advertising and this new business are evidence of what opponents warned of, which is that introducing marijuana into Massachusetts for medicinal purposes would create a market and a subculture around marijuana,” said Rob Cunningham, executive director of the Mass. state GOP, in a recent interview with the Boston Herald.

Another buzz-kill -- marijuana use is still illegal under federal law. So how the FCC will weigh in, if it does at all, remains unclear.