I’ve seen these all over Europe. Some have simple images of the cross flashing, some have windows screensaver esque animations, and some have 3d renders of various things rotating in all sorts of ways. Why is that? Wouldn’t a simple green cross be enough to get the point across, or do they need to be overly verbose? Here’s the full video instead of a gif
Ok, so this might be an americanism, but the green cross says “cannabis dispensary” to me. At least around me, the medical marijuana industry is somewhat separated from the medical industry, and dispensaries are entirely different establishments from pharmacies. Pharmacies (and other medical establishments) use different symbols. If they were to use a cross to indicate a medical establishment, the red cross would be recognizable as a generalized symbol, but apparently it’s heavily protected by the Red Cross.
But that’s just my context, so I don’t have much of an answer beyond “this is what it means 'round these parts”
Edit: added info from below
To add to this, the US already has a universal symbol for pharmacies. It’s a capital R with the slanted leg extended past the bottom of the R and crossed to make a X.
℞
And the barber shop!
$ < medicine
The red cross symbol is actually not a generalized symbol and use of it is heavily controlled by the American Red Cross non-profit. There is a history of lawsuits against video games for using the red cross on medkits without permission. If a pharmacy in the US uses it, they no doubt had to seek approval.
There’s a “removed Geneva convention violation” patch note in an early update of Stardew Valley for exactly this reason.
Ahh, that’s genuinely interesting, thanks!
So is this not for a cannabis dispensary?
That’s definitely part of my blind spot here. I don’t know of anywhere that uses a green cross for something other than a dispensary, but I also don’t know a lot of things , sooo¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The green cross is the universal symbol for pharmacies in Southern Europe. Admittedly I haven’t checked if any of them do have cannabis, but I’d recommend not asking pharmacists whether they got it. As others mentioned, the red cross wouldn’t be used as that would be a Geneva conventions violation.
Indeed, the green cross is the symbol for pharmacies here in Spain and in most places I’ve been (including a bit of northern europe).
None of them sell cannabis. If legal to sell, it needs to be sold in separate stores, which usually don’t have flashing signs. Those stores can’t use the green cross as a symbol.
This fucked me up big time my first trip which was way before it was so common in the States
It is universal in France. Sometimes you can stand in the street and see four or five flashing away in your view. I kinda like them, don’t have them in my country.