The article “Colorado Pot Shop Accepting Food Stamps – Taxpayer Funded Marijuana for Welfare Recipients” is not real, having been published by one of a growing number of satire news websites.
The websites make up stories in order to get laughs, and page views, and take their inspiration from the Onion, the most popular and well-established of them all.
This article comes the National Report, which is not as well known as the Onion so sometimes ends up fooling more people. A disclaimer that used to be on the website says: “National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news.”
The article claims that one Colorado marijuana shop is accepting food stamps, citing the real news broadcast 9News--but notably linking to the 9News homepage, not a specific story. There was no story about this on 9News.
The story claims that Rite Greens in Denver is accepting food stamps.
“If you are a tax payer in Colorado, you get to pay for welfare recipients, a majority of whom are Democrats of course, to smoke pot now,” the article quotes Denver resident Paul Horner as saying. The National Report uses the name “Paul Horner” in multiple articles across different subjects.
”Where will this all end? First it was Obamaphones, then Obamacare, now Obamaweed?” Horner is quoted as saying.
It then quotes store owner JC Franco in an interview with the National Report: ““Everyone should have access to marijuana. If a user is not able to afford their buds on a limited budget then having taxpayers help cover the shortage is only fair. This isn’t a right only for the wealthy.”
There’s no way food stamps can be used to buy marijuana. Food stamps are strictly limited to purchasing food and beverages, and are not allowed to be used for anything outside of that. The food stamps aren’t even allowed to be used for food that is ready-made.
The fake news article has over 11,000 likes on Facebook and has been shared over 6,300 times on the social media website.
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