Pubdate: Mon, 24 Mar 2014
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 2014 San Jose Mercury News
Contact:  http://www.mercurynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author: Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times

POT ADVOCATES FIND NEW ALLIES IN CONSERVATIVES

Business Side of Industry Fires Up Lobbying Push

WASHINGTON - Hoping to get marijuana legalized in Nevada, an 
investment company specializing in the fast-growing marijuana 
industry invited the ballot initiative's backers to pitch 150 fi 
nanciers at a Las Vegas symposium.

Within 10 minutes, they raised $ 150,000.

Political contributors are not the only ones taking notice of the new 
realities of the marijuana business, said San Francisco-based ArcView 
chief executive Troy Dayton, who estimated his group will spend about 
$ 500,000 this year to support legalization of pot. Officeholders and 
candidates now jostle for the stage at investor meetings, he said.

"A little more than a year ago, it would have been worthy of a 
headline if a sitting politician came to talk to a cannabis group," 
he said. "Now they are calling us, asking to speak at our events."

No clearer example of the change exists than the industry's newest 
full-time lobbyist, Michael Correia. An advocate for the 300member 
National Cannabis Industry Association, he is a former GOP staffer 
who for two years worked as a lobbyist for the American Legislative 
Exchange Council - the powerful conservative advocacy group that 
works with state lawmakers to block health care reform, clean energy 
incentives and gun restrictions.

"People hear the word ' marijuana' and they think Woodstock, they 
think tiedye, they think dreadlocks," the San Diego native said. "It 
is not. These are legitimate businesses producing revenue, creating 
jobs. I want to be the face of it. I want to be what Congress sees."

Correia doesn't smoke pot. It makes him sleepy, he said. And he 
hasn't been in the trenches for years fi ghting for legalization.

For him, the work is largely about the federal government 
unnecessarily stifling an industry's growth. Any conservative, he 
said, should be troubled when companies can't claim tax deductions or 
keep cash in banks or provide plants for federal medical research.

"I have legitimacy when I walk into these offi ces and say, ' This is 
a cause you can get behind,'" Correia said. "I am not the 
stereotypical marijuana movement person. I grew up supporting these 
principles of limited government and federalism and fairness and 
individual liberty. This is the ultimate poster child for all of that."

As pranksters and protesters give way to lobbyists and consultants in 
pinstriped suits, longtime pot advocates welcome the reinforcements, 
but sometimes bridle at the bottomline agenda.

Officials at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana 
Laws expressed annoyance, for example, when some industry players in 
Maine recently opposed a legalization bill in their state.

Full legalization threatened to break the monopoly on pot sales that 
current medical marijuana sellers enjoy.

"A lot of these companies are just in it for the money, the way any 
entrepreneur is," said Erik Altieri, a lobbyist with NORML.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom