Thank you everyone who wrote and called Google. They have reversed their decision.
Our ad has been approved!
Google Adwords Bans MDMA Harm Reduction Video!
We need your help! In an act harkening back to the pre-internet days of Nancy Reagan and “Just say No,” Google Adwords has refused to allow us to advertise our fundraising campaign because they claim it “promotes drug use.”
When our ad was initially rejected, I received an email from Google stating “we don’t allow promotion of substances that alter the mental state for recreation . . . or instructional content about producing, purchasing, or using recreational drugs.” After writing and calling Google and explaining to them that our film was a harm reduction documentary and did not promote the recreational use of MDMA, they insisted that because our fundraising video claimed that MDMA had “benefits” and that it showed the actual drug, this violated their policies. Even after I pointed out that the only place in the video where the drug is shown is in a scene where it is being legally administered to a veteran as part of an FDA-approved study for the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, they still refused to reconsider their decision.
We need your help now more than ever! Please click here to contact Google Adwords and tell them that their policy of banning ads containing references to recreational drugs is too broad, that harm reduction saves lives, and that it is outrageous that they would not allow a harm reduction documentary to advertise simply because it also shows the legal, medical use of the drug! Don’t let Google handicap our fundraising efforts! Click this link to contact them by email, chat or phone. The Adwords account number to reference is 641-746-4250.
Let’s send a strong message to Google that this is no longer the 1980s!
Thank you,
Emanuel Sferios
Producer & Director, MDMA The Movie