Walt Disney World, the enormous and enormously expensive Graceland-cum-Mecca for Greatest Generation-era cartoon characters and the modern-day parents willing to mortgage their homes to experience it, is the self-described “happiest place on earth.” (Because there’s just something inherently heartwarming about waiting in line three hours to float in fetid water on a log flume ride based on a segregation-era, racist movie, attended to by brainwashed workers who wear a mouse suit for $6.90 an hour.)
It’s unclear if the joyous honorific extends to the on-site Disney Jail—a real place!—which is the destination for anyone caught smoking marijuana in the park.
Though Disney’s two American properties are in California and Florida, where recreational and medical marijuana are legal, both Disneyland and Walt Disney World have banned cannabis in all its forms from both parks, according to reports.
“Illegal substances” and alcohol have been on Disney World’s banned list for some time, but in the months after Florida voters overwhelmingly approved medical cannabis via Amendment 2, the happiest rules on earth were updated to reflect cannabis’s total prohibition, Bay News 9 reported.
So @DisneyParks just banned marijuana, even though medical is legal in CA + FL = bad move there mouse https://t.co/wmEpQizkmJ
— Chris Goldstein (@freedomisgreen) April 27, 2017
Over in Anaheim, California, marijuana has been on the Disneyland banned list for some time—along with selfie sticks, drones and “weapons of any kind.”
This isn’t a shock. Disney is a big company whose business model relies on creating an artificial, controlled environment for a captive audience. Such entities—churches, schools—aren’t know for being progressive.
And aside from California high school kids sneaking vape hits during their senior trips to the park, marijuana isn’t exactly the preferred tonic of Disney’s target audience.
Disney is a private company and is free to prohibit any kind of conduct on its properties, as long as the prohibition doesn’t violate state or federal laws banning discrimination. Thus, while there would be an international incident if Disney were to ban hijabs or yarmulkes—and with good reason—there is nothing stopping the company from declaring its theme parks a no-weed zone
For these reasons, Disney’s weed ban isn’t likely to cause a stir with the public—unless workers started searching park-goers’ bags and belongings for contraband, predicts Matt Morgan, an attorney who worked on Florida’s Amendment 2, who spoke with Orlando-based WESH.
At the same time… if you *were* to be elevated for your ride through Space Mountain… nobody would be the wiser if you gobbled an edible in line. Just saying.
