Marijuana Giant Trulieve Spammed Customers With Thousands of Texts, Lawsuit Says

Many unlicensed cannabis companies are finding themselves in hot water for making false claims about how their product can benefit your health. But Trulieve, a licensed medical marijuana dispensary in Florida, is under fire for being just plain annoying.

In a federal class-action lawsuit filed this week in the Southern District of Florida, Tennessee resident Mats Jaslow claims Trulieve is spamming its customers and followers with thousands of incessant texts. The promotional tactic and its frequency violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which aims to reduce the number of nuisance calls from businesses.

Jaslow's attorney, Andrew Shamis of Aventura, declined to comment on the pending litigation.

Trulieve did not respond to New Times' requests for comment, but a February 2018 tweet encouraged followers to sign up for alerts on "new products, events, sales and more." Coincidentally, the company also posted a tweet the day the lawsuit was filed to tell followers to sign up for alerts specific to their location.

Need some relief from all the holiday stress? You won’t want to miss out on the news to come!
If you haven’t signed up for alerts-now is the time!

Text your locations keyword to 760-670-3130 and sign your email up athttps://t.co/e84NkvutHw pic.twitter.com/CGKkqzwnNZ

— Trulieve (@Trulieve) December 9, 2019

Jaslow, however, says Trulieve's texts were so frequent they disrupted his daily life. His complaint asks for up to $1,500 in damages for each message he received.

The TCPA requires companies to obtain express written consent for solicitations by phone that come from an automated service. In this case, the suit alleges Trulieve sent texts en masse to consumers after making them believe the messages would be somehow personalized upon signup.

The messages Jaslow received hogged the memory on his phone, preventing him from sending other texts, according to the lawsuit, which claims he spent "approximately ten minutes investigating the unwanted text messages including how they obtained his number and who the Defendant was." The suit is unclear about how Trulieve obtained Jaslow's number.

Trulieve settled an unrelated lawsuit earlier this year with the Florida Department of Health by successfully raising the cap on the number of dispensaries a company can operate in the state from 35 to 49. Trulieve, the largest licensed medical cannabis provider in Florida, has 40 locations throughout the state.