COLORADO:  On the same November day that saw more than 1 million people in Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C.,  vote to legalize recreational marijuana, a popular social media app rooted in the cannabis space was removed from Apple’s massive commercial marketplace known as the  App Store.

“The App Store is one of the largest content distribution channels in the world, and we’d already been on there for 14 months,” said Isaac Dietrich, CEO of Denver-based social media outfit MassRoots. “After we were taken down from the App Store, I called Apple back on election day and the guy said they had amended the App Store policy on cannabis social apps.

“I told him, ‘You do know that Oregon, Alaska and D.C. are about to push legalization through.’ He said the executives in the App Store said this content isn’t the kind of content they want to see in the App Store.”

Apple told The Denver Post its policies on marijuana apps have not changed. Its  legal guideline 22.1 says, “Apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users.”