Buzz kill: Crozet man finds eBay yanks High Times
http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2010/02/15/buzz-kill-crozet-man-finds-ebay-yanks-high-times/
by Lisa Provence
Feb 15, 2010
Super Bowl Sunday left Crozet resident Fred Carwile "frustrated and
angry," he says. And not because the Saints won.
That was the day he discovered that his sales listings for
back-issues of High Times magazine, which he's sold for years on
eBay, had been yanked without warning.
Further infuriating Carwile: He claims that two different eBay
customer service reps told him the marijuana-oriented mags were
pulled at the request of the federal government.
"The federal government cannot ban books," says Carwile, who notes
that the cannabis culture magazine is sold at Barnes and Noble and
countless convenience stores across the nation. "They're pressuring a
business to ban books."
EBay insists it's always been company policy to prohibit sales of
items that "encourage, promote, facilitate, or instruct others to
engage in illegal activities," according to Anne Kott with APCO
Worldwide, a PR firm.
Yet medical marijuana is legal in California, where eBay is based,
and in 13 other states.
"Even though there might be states that allow it, eBay probably goes
under federal law," posits Kott, though the publicist-for-hire
remains unable to explain the sudden enforcement of eBay policy
against High Times, of which there were 600 completed transactions in
just the past 30 days.
"I'm not an authorized spokesperson for eBay," says Kott, who had not
responded by press time to a reporter's question about Carwile's
claim that the federal government had asked eBay to pull the plug on
High Times or about which federal entity might have such an alleged request.
"I've sold hundreds of these over the year, and then to say it
violates policy, to me, it's hypocrisy," says another top-rated power
seller, Garcia Santana, in Northern California. "This is selective
discrimination. It's sold in every state."
Santana finds it suspicious that the listings were pulled during the
middle of the Super Bowl, "when they must have thought nobody was
paying attention." And he has his own theory about the timing: "the
same time Meg Whitman is running for governor."
Whitman is the former eBay CEO and billionaire now vying for the
Republican nomination to succeed the term-limited incumbent, Arnold
Schwarzenegger. The state, which already allows medical marijuana
sales, may have an initiative on the ballot in November to legalize
and tax the plant, but Whitman has said that she's "100% not in favor
of legalizing marijuana for any reason."
Neither quasi-eBay-spokesperson Kott nor Whitman's campaign had
responded by press time to a reporter's questions about whether there
was any connection between Whitman's campaign and eBay's High Times
purge, but the policy has clear implications for a seller like Santana.
"I'm disabled," says Santana, who also sells classic issues of
Rolling Stone and Mad magazine. "These High Times are highly
collectible," he says. "I broke my back a few years ago, and this is
how I make my living."
Despite sodomy laws still on the books in several states, including
Virginia, eBay still allows the sale of hardcore gay sex magazines
plus sex toys and bondage equipment in its adults-only area. "Yet,"
says Santana, "they pull this mainstream magazine."
Rap music, the lyrics of which often refer to violence, homophobia,
and smoking "blunts," aka thick marijuana cigarettes, remains readily
available on eBay as do early discs of "Lucy in the Sky with
Diamonds," a song widely believed to celebrate the use of LSD. "Are
they going to ban the Beatles?" Santana wonders.
"We've been censored before in other countries," says High Times
executive editor Dan Skye. "I've never seen anything like this. It
kind of came out of nowhere."
Civil liberties authority John Whitehead says that eBay is free to
set policies about what it sells, but the founder of the nonprofit
Rutherford Institute is troubled about the allegation of official
involvement in a ban.
"If they're doing it at the urging of the government," says
Whitehead, "there's your lawsuit."
For Carwile a high-volume, high-service "Power Seller" who also
moves magazines featuring naked women it's the ban on a legal
product that's so bothersome. He points out that drug paraphernalia,
such as a High Times "tobacco" grinder, is still available. And an
eBay search for rolling papers turns up nearly 900 results.
That's a lot of hand-rolled tobacco.
"I used to sell antiques, but this was more profitable," says
Carwile. "High Times is about 10 percent of my sales. It's just a few
dollars lost to me, but I feel the concept behind it alarming."
High Times editor Skye wonders whether there's a new "sheriff" at
eBay. "This," he says, "is kind of like a stone age forgive the pun
mentality."
.
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