Plan for Marijuana game at toy fair up in smoke
A Monopoly-style board game in which players run an endangered marijuana-growing operation has been pulled from the New York Toy Fair at the 11th hour.
The Toy Industry Association concluded the Grow Op game violated the fair’s criteria.
Vice-president Jean Butler told Canadian-based manufacturer Bored Games Corp that the fair aimed to market fun, educational and safe products to support the positive development of children.
“This game’s concept is considered contrary to our goals,” she said.
Grow Op highlights the perils and risks involved in the marijuana-growing business. It cautions the would-be grower by demonstrating that the road to easy money is not always an easy one.
The game is the brainchild of an unidentified former grower whose business was plagued by troubles, culminating in a knock on the door from the authorities and a jail term.
But, keen to capitalise on the business, he invented a game where people could experience all the dangers of growing marijuana without the real risks.
While trying to grow the herb, players may be exposed by neighbours, have electricity cut off or have their harvest endangered by floods, fires and fungus, not to mention police raids.
Bored Games Corp spokesman Ivan Solomon said games promoting violence, gun use and crime were commonplace at the Toy Fair.
“How could a board game that advocates sensibility before crime be more harmful than the video games, toy guns, and warfare games that have killing and war as their main theme?” he said.
The American International Toy Fair opens in New York this weekend.
