Facebook and Instagram Cannabis Ads Policy - Meta Rules on THC, CBD, Hemp Ads, LegitScript Certification, Written Authorization for Dispensaries - Bud Authority Search Strategy

The rule sits on Meta's CBD and related products ad standard: ads may not promote or offer the sale of THC products or cannabis products containing related psychoactive components. Nothing in that wording turns on where the advertiser is licensed.

For a dispensary, that covers the products the store exists to sell. Flower, pre-rolls, vapes, concentrates and edibles that contain THC are THC products, and an ad for a weekend deal, a new drop or a brand feature promotes them. Meta's wording also reaches ads that offer those products for sale, so expect review to treat an ad linking to an online menu that sells them the same way, however clean the creative looks.

Google Ads also bans marijuana ads but leaves a narrow opening for topical hemp-derived CBD, and its two policy pages word the three-jurisdiction CBD limit differently, as the Google Ads cannabis and CBD policy page explains. The platform-by-platform breakdown of cannabis ad policies covers the other networks.

Meta allows ads for hemp products in Canada, Mexico and the United States. That is a wider area than CBD, which stops at the US border, so a brand selling both cannot assume one targeting setup fits both product lines.

Per Meta's drugs and pharmaceuticals page, hemp products that contain no CBD and no more than 0.3% THC can be advertised without written authorization, with hemp seed and hemp fiber given as examples. That exemption covers seed and fiber goods, not the CBD tinctures or THC products a dispensary is known for. Hemp that contains CBD falls outside it, so plan for it as a CBD product, with both approvals and US-only targeting.

Clearing Meta's review says nothing about state law. A licensed dispensary's advertising also answers to its state cannabis regulator, and those rules apply to an ad whether or not Meta approved it. Meta's age limit for CBD targeting is a platform setting, not a substitute for a state's audience test.

In New York, amended section 129.2(g) of the adult-use advertising regulations lets a licensee advertise only where the share of the audience reasonably expected to be 21 or older meets or exceeds the 21-and-older share of the state's population, and the licensee carries the burden of proof. The same rules allow social media ads only where the user verifies they are 21 or older. Meta's CBD targeting floor is 18, so a campaign built to Meta's limits alone shows nothing about either New York test. The New York cannabis advertising rules page covers that state in full, and other states have their own pages under cannabis advertising laws by state.

For the shoppers Meta ads cannot reach, the search side is covered in cannabis SEO for dispensary websites and Google Business Profile and map-pack management. To see where a dispensary stands in search today, start with the free Bud Authority search audit, which returns its findings as an on-screen report card.