Sometimes something crosses a line so clearly that there should be no need for debate, nuance, or excuses.

I was shocked and disgusted to open this week’s 5 Towns Jewish Times and see, on page two, a full-page, full-color advertisement promoting cannabis.

Page two. Full page. In a publication distributed throughout the frum community.

How did we get here?

How does a frum newspaper, read by families across Far Rockaway and the Five Towns, accept an advertisement promoting a substance that has caused tremendous destruction in countless lives and families? How does such an ad make it through the sales department, the graphics department, management, and ultimately into print without someone saying: This does not belong in a frum newspaper?

And where is the outrage?

Where are the Rabbanim of Far Rockaway and the Five Towns? Where are our community leaders? Where are the organizations that deal every single day with the devastating consequences of substance abuse?

This cannot simply be shrugged off with the response that cannabis is legal in New York. Plenty of things may be legal but are entirely inappropriate to promote to a frum readership. A newspaper serving the Torah community has a responsibility that goes beyond asking whether an advertisement complies with state law.

Anyone who believes drug abuse is some distant problem affecting other communities should speak to the people on the front lines.

Ask Achiezer.

Ask Amudim.

Ask Ohel.

Ask those involved in addiction treatment and rehabilitation.

Ask a longtime Hatzolah member how many overdose calls volunteers have responded to in New York City and elsewhere. Ask how many parents have gotten the phone call that changed their lives forever. Ask how many marriages and families have been torn apart by addiction.

Cannabis is not the same thing as every other drug, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. But neither should we pretend that aggressively marketing recreational drug use is harmless, particularly in a community already struggling with substance abuse and addiction.

There is another issue here as well: normalization.

Advertising works. That is why companies spend enormous sums of money on it. A glossy, professionally designed, full-page cannabis advertisement does not merely inform readers that a product exists. It normalizes it. It presents it as another ordinary consumer product — no different from a restaurant, mortgage company, supermarket or vacation destination.

Is that really the message we want appearing on page two of a frum newspaper?

There must be a line.

Our community newspapers are not merely businesses selling square inches of advertising space. They enter thousands of Jewish homes. Children see them. Teenagers see them. Yeshiva bochurim and seminary girls see them. Parents reasonably expect publications marketing themselves to the frum community to exercise some basic level of judgment regarding what they bring into those homes.

This demands more than private grumbling.

The 5 Towns Jewish Times should publicly explain how this advertisement was accepted and commit that advertisements promoting recreational cannabis and similar substances will not appear again.

Local Rabbanim and community organizations should make their position unmistakably clear as well. Silence sends its own message.

And advertisers should understand that frum consumers have every right to demand standards from the publications they financially support.

If we remain silent every time another boundary is crossed, we should not be surprised when, a few years from now, we look around and wonder where all the boundaries went.

There are moments when a community needs to say, loudly and without embarrassment: No. This is unacceptable.

This is one of those moments.

Y.G. – Five Towns

The views expressed in this letter are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of YWN. Have an opinion you would like to share? Send it to us for review.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)