The Weed Lobby. What do those three words make you think of? Stop for a moment and let the mental image come into focus . . .
If you’re like me, you are picturing some aged hippie in a tie-dye shirt, Birkenstocks, fanny pack on, crooked, wild eyebrows and long white hair in a ponytail, holding a clipboard asking you to sign a petition to “unchain the herb.” We think of the old burn-outs at NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) smoking doobies and complaining about cops and politicians; it’s actually a pretty fun crowd if you ask me. I could sit for hours with these guys talking about Led Zeppelin and biodiesel, sustainable farming and global warming, civil unrest and tolerance—good stuff! Because people like this are true believers, they are interesting. While we might not agree on everything, I have a hard time looking down on someone who believes passionately in something, even if that something is different than my beliefs; it’s that kind of relationship that makes life interesting.
The kinds of people who make life incredibly uninteresting, predictable, and frustrating are the carpetbaggers: the people who follow money as the only truth and who will do anything to get paid. This is the THC lobby in America today. Hippies and NORML have been replaced by Troy Dayton at Arcview, F. Aaron Smith at the Cannabis Industry Association, Ethan Nadelmann at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), Mason Tvert at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), Brendan Kennedy at Privateer Holdings, Justin Hartfield at Weedmaps by SAFER, The Marijuana Industry Group, The International Cannabis Association, The Marijuana Trade Association, and the Marijuana Growers Association of America. And of course Brian Vicente and Christian Sederberg, two of the architects of A64 whose law firm was named one of “the most powerful people” in Denver by 5280 magazine in 2014, and whose website proudly states, “Building The Industry” at the top of their homepage, to name a few.
These guys don’t wear tie dye and carry clipboards. They are lobbyists and privileged white guys (seriously, they are all white and rich) in $5,000 suits carrying smartphones and being followed by personal assistants. They drive Mercedes not Subarus and have more money at their disposal than you and I will ever see in our lives, all stored up for one reason: to get you to consume, and keep consuming, THC. The more THC you consume the more they make, the more lawyers they can hire, and the more politicians and voters they can influence. The more laws they change the richer they get. Like most things in this country, it’s all about the money, and people are literally lining up in Colorado to give them theirs. The first day of recreational weed sales, customer lines stretched around the block at shops all over the state.
When the battle over A64 was raging in Colorado, I was surprised by the constant vitriol. The first threat of violence that came in over our website freaked me out when I saw it and I was surprised to see my coworkers, political veterans, laugh it off and tell me that it was commonplace in this campaign and that I shouldn’t worry at all about it. I had an idea of what civil discourse was all about and figured that the debates and arguments would be informed and interesting. I wasn’t expecting bomb threats and people telling me they hoped my kids got hit by a bus at events. My ignorance was quickly replaced by the wisdom that comes with experience, and I came to expect that kind of “passion” from the other side. Initially, I was also surprised by the seemingly endless resources that the pro-64 side displayed compared to the lack of money raised by our campaign. I had no idea how the deep the pockets of the pro side were—and still are. With that said, one of the most surprising things I saw in the campaign’s first few weeks was when I actually came face to face with our opposition. We were doing an event—at the Denver Press Club, as I recall—and it came to our attention that we would have protestors present. I expected a group of guys in T-shirts carrying cardboard signs. Instead, I saw Mason Tvert of the Marijuana Policy Project in a very nice suit, leading a small group of people dressed equally as well, passing out flyers with counterpoints to many of our arguments. The sheets were professionally produced—full color and glossy—full of half-truths and misrepresentations of the science. I was shocked. This initial experience with The Lobby left me scratching my head. How did these guys get their money? What drove them to show up with their crew everywhere we were to cast doubt on objective science and get as much media time as they could? The explanation was a well-oiled machine that had been built and paid for by the DPA and the MPP, two groups I had never heard of before the campaign to commercialize THC in Colorado. Since then, I’ve learned of the depth of these organizations and others, and the drive they have to influence policy so that they can get paid.
If the legalization movement had a family tree, the rich uncle would be the DPA, and its godfather would be George Soros, the billionaire investor, business magnate, and philanthropist. The DPA is a policy group out of New York City run by a PhD/JD named Ethan Nadelmann. He first came on the scene when he was appointed to the board of directors for NORML in 1984. With the financial backing of his longtime friend George Soros, Ethan went on to found the Lindsmith Center in 1994, a group that would eventually rebrand as the DPA in 2000. With the help and funding of Soros, as well as others who sit on their insanely well-funded board—like Richard Branson, Sting, Harry Belafonte and of course Arianna Huffington (co-founder and former editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post)—the DPA claims to be the brain and war chest behind California’s first in the nation “medical” marijuana laws, in addition to all of the “recreational” laws that have passed in the last few years. Their huge staff boasts seven full-time employees in their “office of legal affairs.” The org chart at the DPA would make the nonprofits I have been a part of green with jealousy at the obvious resources it takes to run such an organization. In fact, they are so well funded they have their own grant-making division working to “promote policy change and advance drug policy reform at the local, state, and national levels.” These guys are policy experts working to change laws over time to be more friendly to users and dealers.
In addition to their professional bench, the DPA also has an unrivaled network of volunteers that can be called on at a moment’s notice to protest or advocate as directed. Thousands upon thousands of people, mostly young people, are on standby, ready to advocate for the DPA’s positions.
While Ethan is the front man for the DPA, there is no question about whose resources underwrite much of the expenses. George Soros is by far their largest contributor, donating in excess of $100 million. As one of the thirty richest people in the world Soros is a controversial figure. A notorious “short seller,” the mention of his name makes my conservative friends go pale and cross themselves. In 2005, a French court convicted Soros of insider trading.
George Soros
As a philanthropist he has given away billions over the years to various causes but it would appear that the apple of his eye is the DPA and their work to change drug laws. Since Soros has made his billions speculating on the market it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess his intentions. In a recent TED Talk, Ethan described the global drug trade as a “commodity market” that isn’t being taken advantage of. I can guess who would like to control some of those “commodities.”
In an issue of The Economist (July 26, 2001) Nadelmann is quoted as saying:
“The best answer is to move slowly but firmly to dismantle the edifice of enforcement. Start with the possession and sale of cannabis and amphetamines, and experiment with different strategies. Move on to hard drugs, sold through licensed outlets.”
Make no mistake about it, this debate is about unleashing the “global commodity market” that is drugs—all drugs. Fortunately for us we have vast experience on this subject in America, we need look no further than alcohol and tobacco. These two legal drugs give us a good idea of how “regulated” sales work in our style of capitalism. Let’s ask ourselves, did we nail it with alcohol and tobacco? Is our country a better place because we have these substances so readily available and advertised? I don’t know about you, but if I could go back in time a hundred years and fight like hell to keep big tobacco from becoming what it is today I would do it in a second. I would do whatever it took to get our nation to think a few years down the road instead of just react to what the budding industry was feeding us.
In Colorado, we know of no less than twenty-eight full-time lobbyists dedicated to protecting and advancing the financial interests of the THC industry. To date, there are no dedicated lobbyists working to oppose their interests, and why should there be? There’s no money in it! Ask yourself, Joe Public, “How do you expect to get honest and unbiased facts about this issue when so many people are working so hard to advance only one side?” I realize this question cuts to the very heart of politics and the money behind it, but I can’t avoid the discussion. I want us to look to the specifics of this issue. We are considering a massive shift in policy that will result in more access to a substance we know little about in its current form. We must not allow the conversation to be defined just by those who stand to profit.
I often hear the undefined “they” referred to when discussing how these laws come into being. I believe that most Americans think laws are crafted by benevolent politicians pulling all-nighters with their staffers, weighing the best evidence, the pros and cons of each sentence to make sure that what is put to a vote is in the best interests of those it will affect. We believe that knowledgeable and thoughtful leaders dedicate huge amounts of consideration to what will become law in this country. The reality is that most politicians are too busy eating good steak and drinking good whisky to be bothered with actually crafting bills. They are provided with “sample legislation” that is given to them by those buying the steak and whisky. Lobbies write bills, politicians present and vote on them. The weed legislation being considered and voted upon is crafted by rich Uncle DPA. Concerned much less with the harms of their sample bills than they are with increasing the profit margin of the commodity market, these bills are not about anything other than making money.
A dear friend of mine works with troubled youth in Denver. I won’t say more because I can’t compromise the trust in which this story was relayed. He had been working with a young man for several years who was finally terming out of their program. Prior to intervention, this youth’s future was bleak. He has a functional IQ of 72, meaning that he was just above the minimum threshold below which he would be given permanent disability by the State of Colorado for life. Since the State deemed him just capable enough to navigate the world on his own, he would have to work. My friend helped him get a part-time job in the fast food industry and find a roommate. His life wouldn’t be the kind of thing books are written about, but it would be okay.
On the day he was being discharged from his recovery program, the employees of my friend’s underfunded service agency threw a party with their own money celebrating the young man’s success and wishing him well as he set off into the world on his own. While eating cake and sharing a few laughs, my buddy noticed the young man on his phone. He stepped closer to listen, and could hear the young man make arrangements for his friend to buy him an ounce of weed. Exasperated, my buddy quickly confronted him, reminding the youth that weed wasn’t going to help him and that they had all fought hard to get him to his substance-free state. My friend, with tears in his eyes, recounted to me the young man’s response: “Dude, if it was bad for me they wouldn’t have legalized it.” Think about that. This young man had such confidence in the “they” making this decision that he was going to celebrate by getting high. By consuming a substance that that leads to up to an eight-point IQ loss in those who use it regularly1, the same as lead poisoning. He believed that the State was looking out for him; it wasn’t. A constitutional amendment written by the THC lobby had won out, convincing him that his life would be better spent high. He was assured that the consequences were nothing to worry about because “it’s just weed.” In the end, some dispensary would pocket another $100.
I believe that it is our responsibility to look out for the most vulnerable in our society, those who have the deck stacked against them, the disenfranchised, the less fortunate. Are we willing to let their futures be defined by The Lobby, which sees them as nothing more than willing consumers of their commodities?
My friend Will Jones did something absolutely insane a few years ago. He stood up to the weed lobby in Washington, DC. As a young African-American man in our nation’s capital he was supposed to be in a demographic that was locked up, and one that would vote with the DPA legislation. Will didn’t see it that way. He saw the harm that drugs, and specifically marijuana, had done in his neighborhood and decided to push back on the legislation being pushed on him. Will started a true grassroots organization and went about fighting. He debated, wrote and performed rap songs, and slam poetry to get the word out to his peers. He was relentless in his opposition to a bill that would eventually pass and open the doors to the THC lobby in DC. In my mind, this is what America is all about: one man willing to fight back, and to stand up for his community in the face of insurmountable odds. Rather than winning praise for his efforts and given consideration for his position, The Lobby demonized Will and eventually sued him. They so hated his dissent that they did all they could to destroy him. With the help of some pro bono work from a local lawyer, Will eventually got his life back but not before he learned an important lesson: if you fight The Lobby, be prepared to face the consequences.
Sadly, I will know that this book has found its mark when I am further set upon by The Lobby. It is astonishing to me the amount of energy that gets spent trying to silence any opposition to their efforts. I recently went to Michigan to give a few talks. I was warned by one of the groups that there was chatter on social media that was threatening enough that they suggested I keep a pretty low profile and ride to and from events with police when possible. As someone with nothing at all to prove, I gladly accepted my rides (got some cool pics of Dad with the police for my six-year-old) and went about giving the talks. On my second day, I was greeted by protestors at the venue with signs and chants. They were willing to stand outside in a Michigan winter to protest the presence of someone who dared raise another perspective. They then proceeded to follow me around the state protesting the events. I knew I was on the right path.
Last year, I went to Texas Christian University (TCU) to participate in an event for the student body about weed. It was a debate-style format, which I don’t like because there’s usually too much emphasis on soundbites over science, but I love talking to young people. I was also invited to meet up with the TCU Students for Recovery Peer Support Group on campus while there, so I jumped on a plane. I was to be opposite a gentleman named “Radical” Russ Belville. An outspoken proponent of marijuana, Russ airs a twenty-four hour legalization talk show The Marijuana Agenda with Russ Belville 420radio.org.
In addition to being up to date on the most recent science and trends, I prepare for debates by very deliberately humanizing the person I will be sharing the stage with. As a person in recovery, it’s super important to me that I never make any of it personal and that I don’t get angry when debating. I want to make sure that I get the chance to shake hands with my opponent and to get to know him or her a bit. I don’t think people are “bad” or “good”; we’re all just people doing the best we can with what we have, and I like to spend some time with the other side to remind myself of that fact.
When I arrived on campus in my little economy rental car (scary as crap when navigating Dallas during rush hour) I noticed the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) SUV parked out front. It was wrapped and covered with weed plants and their logo. I smiled to myself and walked in. Russ was accompanied by several young men who did their best to make me feel uncomfortable by surrounding me and standing inside my personal space.
I introduced myself to them all, shaking hands and making small talk. I asked Russ to step aside for a moment, and I thanked him for making the trip. I told him a little about myself and tried to steer our conversation away from weed; nobody wants to be one-dimensional, and I wanted to know the man, not the debater.
We went on to have an interesting debate that was frustrating at times because I felt like people were less interested in the data and more interested in “zingers.” But in the end I left feeling positive and grateful to have been asked to have that important conversation with students. I was a bit surprised when Russ brought up my own recovery in a negative way a few times, but such is life. What really caught me off guard was hearing what he had posted on Facebook around the debate. I don’t do anything on social media, I hardly have time to keep up with the friends in my life as is! So when a buddy showed me the posts it was all news to me. Prior to the debate he posted:
“I almost feel sorry for the guy, Ben Cort. Then I remember that he supports testing my piss to determine my character, using cops to enforce sobriety, and incarceration of minorities at disproportionate rates. So f—k him. He gets my complete and undivided attention tonight, when I’m through he will wish he was still smoking pot.”
While there is nothing wrong with getting amped up for the debate, I’m not sure what the “testing my piss” thing was all about and some of the other claims made me chuckle. It wasn’t the same spirit that I had hoped for in our debate but . . . whatever.
The post following our event was when it got good:
“I just would not let Ben breathe without bringing it back to punishing adults who choose marijuana over beer (thanks Mason Tvert) and that this is about marijuana markets that have and will always exist (thanks Peter J Christ) and that what we’re really talking about is freedom, not marijuana (thanks Keith Stroup).”
It was interesting to me that he came back to “marijuana markets” and the tagline developed by MPP superstar Mason Tvert. It is also important to note that his conversation, and that of other proponents, is most often about freedom rather than marijuana. By making it all about freedom we ask people to disregard the specifics of the conversation and associate it with something that we love in America—and especially in Texas.
He goes on in the same post:
“Ben only had his commercialization scare . . . He tried to evoke sympathy for the poor marijuana addicts like him who suffer the smell of marijuana all around Denver; I stiffed that with ‘as a guy recovering from obesity, I hate smelling that doughnut shop by my house’. . .”
While I remember much of the debate differently than Russ, I do recall the exchange around the smell of weed in Denver well. My first reaction to him saying he was a food addict was compassion. Eating disorders are a huge and growing problem in our society and I have plenty of friends who have struggled with them; they are actually more lethal in many cases than chemical addiction. We see lots of eating disorders with our patients, it is very serious business. My sympathy disappeared pretty quickly when I realized that he was making fun of the daily fight I and many others have to stay sober and was taking a shot at people who really do struggle with food-related addictions. The point I had made was that nobody cares about responsible adults who want to get high, but The Lobby feels like it is their right to allow for open consumption, and the smell that accompanies it, to be anywhere in Colorado and the rest of us just need to adjust. I resent the fact that my kids now know what weed smells like because it is everywhere in Colorado and that it doesn’t make things easier for people like me to constantly be smelling it wherever we go.
Let me say again that I don’t care if you smoke weed, but it’s not your right to make me smell your weed for the same reason I don’t have to smell someone’s cigarette smoke. In this regard, it is very different from alcohol. I don’t walk down the street on a summer night in Boulder and smell beer in the air at every corner. The idea that I was being mocked for saying I didn’t want to smell weed everywhere was pretty surprising, but the biggest takeaway from those posts was the total disregard for any opinion other than the one he came in with.
If evidence presented during a debate proved an opponent’s position was correct, I wouldn’t hold fast to my position at all costs. The day I do that is the day I stop taking the stage. We should always be willing to change our minds for the better; dogma be damned. When I debate about weed, I often feel like I am arguing with people who are so entrenched in their belief systems that challenging them threatens their fundamental self-perceptions. Further complicating the issue is one’s livelihood. When a person’s paycheck and belief system are woven together, he or she becomes territorial, because a change in position would mean a loss of income. They are stuck defending a job instead of contributing to a rational conversation. A paid lobby exemplifies the worst of this argument.
So, back to The Lobby issue. I just stepped away from writing to grab some dinner. While waiting to order my burrito I picked up the newest edition of Boulder Weekly, a free local independent newspaper that always has interesting articles you won’t find in the commercial dailies. While thumbing through articles about renaming Columbus Day to “Indigenous Peoples Day” and getting mountain bikes to the women in Boulder’s sister city in Afghanistan, I came across something interesting opposite a full-page ad for pre-rolled packs of joints: “The Gummy Bear Dilemma.” This article discussed pending legislation in Colorado that would require THC candy makers to indicate that their candy contained THC. The fact that this is even up for debate proves my point about the power of The Lobby. The article said, “(marking candy as containing THC) is a substantial hiccup in the business operations for marijuana-infused product companies and one that comes at a considerable cost.” The journalist goes on to quote Nancy Whiteman, spokeswoman for the Cannabis Industry Alliance (CBA), “The CBA, and I think The Industry at large, were very supportive of the child-resistant packaging regulations because we can clearly see how that helped public safety and helped keep it away from children. But the CBA is under the impression that the previous rounds of labeling and child-resistant packaging sufficiently dealt with the potential for accidental ingestion. What we have been asking for, as an industry group, is please show us the data that there is in fact even a need for this.”
Okay, let’s recap: the generous people at the CBA claimed to love the idea of child-resistant packaging. (Truth be told, The Industry fought tooth-and-nail, claiming undue regulations like this would hamper their profits.) The CBA really doesn’t see an issue with gummy bears that contain 100 milligrams of THC, ten times the legal serving size, being totally indistinguishable from regular gummy bears. They first want data showing that regulations that aren’t in effect anywhere on God’s green earth will be helpful before they agree to stamp their THC candy so that parents don’t accidentally give it to their three-year-old. Seriously, have we lost our damn minds?
Sounds a lot to me like the argument that candy cigarettes aren’t bad because they are clearly candy. But candy cigarettes can’t lead to death or hospitalization—unlike THC-infused candy. Hospital admissions for children under twelve who accidently consume THC are up 800 percent.2 So, again, unless we’ve completely lost our minds, why is this even an issue? It’s because the weed lobby and The Industry it supports puts its profit margins ahead of the well-being of our kids. Heaven forbid that they have to endure a “hiccup” in their ability to buy gummy bears in bulk, lay them on a table, spray them with a concentrated THC, repackage and sell them. These poor lost souls might have to forego the upgraded rims on their brand-new Escalade if we lay all of this “crazy unnecessary” regulation on them. As it stands right now, one of the most reliable ways to tell if a gummy bear in my home state contains THC is whether or not it has been rolled in sugar. Many of the weed-gummies get a healthy coating of sugar added to them before resale—but not all. Bottom line, you better read the packaging pretty carefully before you rip open that bag and let your kids dive in.
In other news, Colorado legislators considered a bill that would make manufacturers declare that their weed is pesticide-free but it was DOA. After the recall of literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of candy and marijuana plants, we are taking another look at how to make sure that harmful and illegal pesticides stay out of the weed people are smoking and eating. In October 4, 2015, The Denver Post published a story, “Deep Dive: Why Colorado Has Struggled to Regulate Pot Pesticides” about the issue. Because commercial weed is grown indoors, in large concentration and in close proximity, the plants are vulnerable to mites and mildew that can rapidly destroy the crop. Growers were thus using very hard-hitting and potentially dangerous pesticides to keep these things in check. The Industry pushed back on regulations and the federal government, which regulates pesticides, didn’t provide guidance because marijuana is not legal federally. The Post article recapped three years of e-mails and records it had obtained about the regulatory resistance. It said: “State regulators struggled with the issue while the cannabis industry protested that proposed limits on pesticides would leave their crops vulnerable. . . . Last year the state was preparing a list of allowable substances that would have restricted pesticides on marijuana to the least toxic chemicals, Colorado Department of Agriculture stopped the process under pressure from The Industry, The Post found.” John Salazar, the former Agriculture Commissioner is then quoted as saying, “The marijuana industry was the biggest obstacle we had.” Starting to believe me about the deep, dark lobby yet?
Mark candy as having THC? Keep known, harmful chemicals from being ingested by the public? Hell no, not if it gets in the way of their bottom line.
An article by Associated Press reporter Kristen Wyatt entitled “Biz Owners Replace Idealists in Pro-Pot Movement” shows how much the philosophical tide has shifted in the push for marijuana legalization laws, from one of personal freedom to one of big profit centers. It begins with the following:
“Business owners are replacing idealists in the marijuana legalization movement as the nascent cannabis industry creates a broad base of new donors, many of them entrepreneurs willing to spend to change drug policy . . . They constitute a bigger coalition of business interests. And their support provides a significant financial advantage for the pro-legalization campaigns.”
So tell me, who is pressuring our politicians from making simple commonsense changes to keep our state a safe place to raise kids? Is it Grandpa and a clipboard, or the marijuana industry and their lawyers? I’m pretty sure Grandpa isn’t donating millions of dollars to their reelection campaigns.
1 Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America vol. 109 no. 40 Madeline H. Meier, E2657–E2664, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1206820109
2 Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. The Legalization of Marijuana in Colorado: The Impact, Volume 3, September 2015, p. 77.