Where Are the Pot Emojis?

If federal laws were to change the legal status of marijuana, it is likely that we would see legit marijuana emojis.

By Russell Hausfeld

With the power of emoji, I can tell anyone who speaks any language that I want to get drunk and smoke cigarettes without getting lost in translation. But, what if I want to let them know I am going to get stoned?

Allen St. Pierre, the Director of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), thinks that legitimate marijuana emoji on our smartphones and social media platforms are inevitable.

"Whether it is a bong, a pot leaf, a joint, maybe some sort of smiley face with red eyes looking stereotypically stoned," St. Pierre said. "NORML has, like, two million people in our social media network. Commercial industries like MassRoots and many others like Leafly and High Times have millions of people. So, there are all these markets of people who would readily sign off for some sort of marijuana iconography."

Gedeon Malheux, a designer at Iconfactory — the team behind Twitter's emoji packages — agrees with St. Pierre. Malheux says that he wouldn't be too caught off guard to get a commission to design a set of marijuana-themed emoji.

"Given how popular emoji are in general right now and how much brands and companies want to take advantage of that popularity for their own promotional purposes, it wouldn't really surprise me if they did," Malheux said.

It is less a matter of "if" when it comes to marijuana emoji, and more a matter of "when." St. Pierre says that as cutting-edge as some of these companies like Apple and Google are, and no matter how much the users on their platforms talk about marijuana regardless of its legal status, they will more than likely adhere to federal laws stating that marijuana is an illegal substance.

"So, yeah, they're probably going to hold out until some federal changes are made, even though they are feeling the commercial and popular pressure to bring them on board," St. Pierre said.

As more and more risqué and culturally loaded iconography is added to emoji libraries, it would be strange if marijuana, a legitimate political discussion, was left out, St. Pierre said.

Until that day comes when you can send a pot leaf emoji through your iPhone, try out some of these emoji combinations for different strains. Can you guess which combination goes with which strain?

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