Pubdate: Mon, 06 Jan 2014
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Rory Carroll

CONCERNS US CANNABIS INDUSTRY WILL GROW TO BECOME 'BIG TOBACCO REDUX'

Critics Say Push to Legalise Drug in Colorado Followed Cigarette 
Lobbying Playbook

Denver - The people who made a hippie dream come true do not look the 
part. Instead of tie-dye T-shirts, the campaigners who masterminded 
the legalisation of recreational marijuana use in Colorado wore dark 
suits and ties to celebrate the world's first legal retail pot sales. 
Instead of talking about the counter-culture, they spoke of 
regulations, taxes and corporate responsibility. They looked sober, 
successful  mainstream.

With Washington state poised to follow Colorado later this year, and 
activists in a dozen other states preparing to fight for 
legalisation, a once-illicit plant is now a legitimate industry with 
advocates, interest groups and lobbyists.

The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), the Drug Policy Alliance, the 
Medical Marijuana Industry Group (MMIG) and the National Cannabis 
Industry Association (NCIA) are just some of the groups now vying to 
shape public opinion and government policy.

For the likes of Diane Goldstein, a former lieutenant commander with 
the Los Angeles police who became an activist for the group Law 
Enforcement Against Prohibition (Leap), the groundswell of support 
for legalisation is welcome evidence that society has turned against 
the drug war. "It's no longer dangerous for people to have a rational 
view about a failed policy," she says.

But for Dr Kevin Sabet of the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, 
which opposes legalisation, the celebratory scenes in Denver pot 
shops last week is proof that a Big Tobacco-style campaign of 
manipulation has prevailed.

Many Americans, he says, are unaware that cannabis can cause 
long-term damage to people's health, especially to the young, and 
that the American Medical Association opposes legalisation. "It's Big 
Tobacco redux," says Sabet, who also directs the drug policy 
institute at the University of Florida's department of psychiatry.

What was a fringe movement four decades ago had evolved into a slick, 
well-funded network based in Washington DC, he says. "It was, 'We 
need to cut our ponytails, take off our tie-dye shirts, put on our 
Macy's suits, go to Congress and start lobbying state legislators.'"

And, Sabet argues, the industry has been mimicking the tobacco 
playbook in portraying its product as virtually harmless while using 
chemistry and marketing to turn consumers into addicts.

According to Sabet, the cannabis industry comprises a vast coalition 
of lobbyists, billionaire sponsors like George Soros and the late 
Peter Lewis, and profit-seeking investors like Privateer Holdings and 
the ArcView Group.

An estimated $1.43bn (UKP871m) worth of legal marijuana was sold for 
medicinal purposes in 2013, and that figure is likely to increase 
exponentially with the advent of legal recreational cannabis.

There is no doubt the legalisation industry has come a long way since 
Keith Stroup founded the National Organisation for the Reform of 
Marijuana Laws in 1970 with $5,000 from the Playboy Foundation.

Activists say smartening up their act was a natural step. A few years 
ago, Mason Tvert wore scruffy T-shirts while urging Colorado college 
students to back legalisation. After winning that fight with a ballot 
initiative in the November 2012, he became the MPP's communications 
director and moved to a smart, well-staffed office near the domed 
state capitol in Denver. "Yeah, I wear a suit these days," he says, smiling.

More important, Tvert continues, was the campaign's focus on a core 
message: cannabis is safer than alcohol.

Buttonholing legislators and policymakers was crucial, says Michael 
Elliott, executive director of the Denver-based MMIG. "We're lobbying 
for regulation and taxation. That's why we're beside the state 
capitol. We're down there every week."

Tvert and Elliott attribute the momentum behind legalisation to 
public recognition that prohibition has been a fiasco that has led to 
needless imprisonments and fiscal waste. And prolegalisation forces 
still have only meagre resources and could barely be said to have 
lobbyists, according to Goldstein. Leap's speakers, she adds, are not paid.

Prof Mark Kleiman, drug legalisation expert at UCLA, says the 
marijuana industry is not a united one with shared interests, and 
should not be viewed as a single lobbying force.

Many of those who have licenses to grow and sell medicinal marijuana, 
for instance, stand to lose heavily from legalising recreational use 
because it would expand competition and depress prices, he says. 
Colorado's medicinal sector obtained exclusive rights to sell 
recreational cannabis for nine months, a temporary shield, but 
medicinal growers in Washington state fear disaster.

In contrast to profit-driven industry lobby groups, says Kleiman, 
marijuana's legalisation efforts so far have been led by advocacy 
groups and funders like Soros who have stood to make little or no 
financial gain. "These are not mostly people who are making a living 
from cannabis and are, therefore, lobbying for laws in their 
industrial interests."

That would likely change, he says, with more legalisation and money. 
"The marijuana lobby is going from being purely ideological to being 
industrial."

Could some of today's tokers become tomorrow's industry spin doctors? 
"Ten years from now will there be an evil marijuana lobby devoted 
entirely to preventing any effective regulation or taxation? 
Absolutely. But that's not the reality at the moment," says Kleiman.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom