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**Sir X** · January 3, 2014, 04:50 PM

Big Cannabis: will legal weed grow to be America's next corporate titan?
Critics of Colorado's new drug policy say the campaign for legal marijuana mimics cigarette's lobbying as 'Big Tobacco redux'
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Rory Carroll in Denver
theguardian.com, Friday 3 January 2014 11.53 EST
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Various strains of marijuana are seen on display at The Green Solution Dispensary in Colorado.
Various strains of marijuana are seen on display at The Green Solution Dispensary in Colorado. Photograph: Zuma/Rex
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 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 approvingly 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 wider legalisation, a once-illicit plant is now breeding a big, legitimate industry replete with advocates, interest groups and lobbyists.

The Marijuana Policy Project, the Drug Policy Alliance, the Medical Marijuana Industry Group and the National Cannabis Industry Association are just some of the groups now vying, with notable success, to shape public opinion and government policy.

To the likes of Diane Goldstein, a former lieutenant commander with the police department of Redondo Beach, California, who’s become an activist for the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, this 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 said.

But for critics like Kevin Sabet of the group Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which opposes legalisation, the celebratory scenes in Denver pot shops this week were evidence that a Big Tobacco-style campaign of manipulation had prevailed.

Many Americans, Sabet said, were unaware that pot could cause long-lasting health damage, especially to the young, and that the American Medical Association opposes legalisation. “It's Big Tobacco redux” said Sabet, who also directs the University of Florida's drug policy institute.

What was a fringe movement four decades ago had evolved into a slick, well-funded network based in Washington DC, he noted. “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, he argued, the marijuana industry has been mimicking cigarette companies' playbook in trying to portray their product as virtually harmless while using chemistry and marketing to turn consumers into addicts.

According to Sabet, the 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 worth of legal marijuana was sold for for medicinal purposes in 2013, and that figure is likely to increase exponentially with the advent of legal recreational pot.

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

Marijuana in a shop in Denver, Colorado.
Marijuana in a shop in Denver, Colorado. Photograph: Reuters
Activists say smartening up their appearance 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 general election Tvert became the Marijuana Policy Project'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 smiled.

More important, he said, was the campaign's focus on a core message: pot is safer than alcohol.

Buttonholing legislators and policymakers was crucial to reform, said Michael Elliott, executive director of the Medical Marijuana Industry Group. “We're lobbying for regulation and taxation. That's why we're beside the state capitol. We're down there every week.” The group recently moved to a new office in Denver.

Tvert and Elliott attributed the momentum behind legalisation to public recognition that prohibition is a fiasco that leads to needless mass jailing and fiscal waste. And Goldstein, the police officer-turned activist, said pro-legalisation forces still have only meagre resources and could barely be said to have lobbyists. Leap's speakers, she said, are not paid.

Mark Kleiman, a public policy professor and drug legalisation expert at UCLA, said the marijuana industry is not a united group with shared interests, and should not be viewed as a single lobbying force.

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

In contrast to profit-driven industry lobby groups, said Kleiman, marijuana's legalisation efforts so far were led by advocacy groups and funders like Soros who 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 said, with more legalisation and money. “The marijuana lobby is going from being purely ideological to being industrial.”

Could some of today's bong-lovers become tomorrow's industry spin doctors? Kleiman said it would be foolish to try to guess how lobbying will evolve but he did predict that as the industry gained a firmer footing it would more aggressively promote its interests.

“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.”

**Sir X** · January 3, 2014, 04:57 PM

Marijuana is America's Next Political Wedge Issue
Pot politics, in 2016 and beyond
BY NATE COHN @nate_cohn Share
We’ve reached the point where there should be no surprise if a major national politician embraces marijuana legalization. Without any large-scale campaign on its behalf, surveys show that approximately half of Americans now support marijuana legalization, including 58 percent in a recent, but potentially outlying, Gallup poll. Regardless of the exact support today, marijuana is all but assured to emerge as an issue in national elections—it's only a question of how and when.

So far, neither party wants to touch the issue. The Democratic governors of Washington and Colorado didn’t even support initiatives to legalize the possession, distribution, and consumption of marijuana, even though the initiatives ultimately prevailed by clear margins. It took the administration ten months to announce—in the middle of the Syria debate—that the Department of Justice wouldn’t pursue legal action against Washington and Colorado. And on the other hand, Republicans weren't exactly screaming about hippies and gateway drugs, either.

Despite their apparent reservation to engage the issue, it’s hard to imagine Democrats staying on the sidelines for too many more election cycles. The party’s base is already on board, with polls showing a clear majority of self-described Democrats in support. Approximately three quarters of Democrats and liberals supported legalization initiatives in Colorado and Washington. This level of support makes it a foregone conclusion that Democrats will eventually embrace the issue. There’s a reason there aren’t very many questions where the public is supportive, the party rank-and-file is supportive, and the party’s elected officials stay silent. Are there any?

To date, Democrats haven’t had many incentives to take a risk on the issue. Democrats are already winning the winnable culture war skirmishes, at least from a national electoral perspective, and they have a winning demographic hand. And let’s get perspective: Marijuana legalization may be increasingly popular, but it’s not clearly an electoral bonanza. Support for legalization isn’t very far above 50 percent, if it is in fact, and there are potential downsides. National surveys show that a third of Democrats still oppose marijuana legalization. Seniors, who turnout in high numbers in off year elections, are also opposed. Altogether, it’s very conceivable that there are more votes to be lost than won by supporting marijuana. After all, marijuana legalization underperformed President Obama in Washington State.

Even so, Democratic voters will eventually prevail over cautious politicians, most likely through the primary process. Any liberal rival to Hillary Clinton in 2016 will have every incentive to support marijuana legalization. Whether Clinton will follow suit is harder to say, given that frontrunners (and Clintons) are generally pretty cautious. It’s probably more likely that Clinton would endorse steps toward liberalization, like weaker criminal penalties and support for the legalization experiments in Washington and Colorado.

Republicans, meanwhile, are less likely to support legalization or liberalization. To be sure, some Republicans will. They can take a states’ rights position and the party has a growing libertarian bent, perhaps best exemplified by Rand Paul’s willingness to support more liberal marijuana laws. Republicans also have electoral incentives to lead on issues where they can earn a few votes among millennials, who pose a serious threat to the continued viability of the national Republican coalition. If the Republicans can't adjust their existing positions to compensate for demographic and generational change, which (for now) it appears they cannot, then perhaps taking a stance on a new issue, like marijuana, is the best they can do.

Of course, the problem is that a majority of Republicans are opposed to legalization. Two thirds of Republicans voted against legalization in Colorado and Washington, where one might expect Republicans be somewhat more amenable than the nation as a whole. It probably doesn’t help that marijuana is closely aligned with the liberal counterculture. It's also possible that many pro-legalization conservatives don't identify as Republicans at all, but instead might be independents. Worse still, Republicans might not reap the electoral benefits of changing positions, since most Democrats would embrace any pro-marijuana policies that Republicans were willing to concede. All considered, it’s risky for a Republican candidate to support liberalization, let alone legalization.

With Republicans likely to remain opposed, marijuana could emerge as a big cultural issue in the 2016 election. In particular, Clinton would be well-positioned to deploy the issue. Her strength among older voters and women mitigates the risk that she would lose very much support, while legalization could help Clinton with the young, independent, and male voters who could clinch her primary or general election victory.

But realistically, Clinton or another Democrat won't campaign on marijuana legalization. For one, it’s most likely that the Democratic nominee will support incremental measures. But even if the Democrat does support legalization, strategists will probably decide that an untested, potentially divisive issue is too risky, particularly for a party holding a pretty good hand of issue and demographic cards. That might make marijuana something like a less politicized version of gay marriage in 2012, where the issue is too popular for Republicans to vigorously oppose, but not popular enough to convince Democrats to actively use it as a wedge issue.

It’s easier to imagine marijuana playing a role in the 2016 primaries. Many candidates will have incentives to use the issue, whether it’s a cultural conservative using marijuana to hurt Rand Paul among evangelicals in Iowa, or a liberal trying to stoke a progressive revolt against Clinton’s candidacy. And once one party begins to debate the issue, the other will almost certainly be confronted by the same question. Marijuana won’t be decisive in a primary, but 2016’s primary battles will shape the two party’s initial positions on the issue.

Yet marijuana’s big moment will probably come later, perhaps in 2024. Legalization might eventually be popular enough for Democrats to use the issue in general elections, first at the state level and then nationally. As with gay marriage, the GOP’s obvious but difficult solution is to take their own creed on states’ rights seriously, and devolve the issue—and the politics—to the states. Compared to gay marriage, which strikes at the heart of the evangelical wing of the party, it should be easier for the Republicans to make an adjustment on marijuana. But if they cannot, the GOP will again find itself on the losing side of the culture wars.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1...al-wedge-issue

**Sir X** · January 3, 2014, 05:09 PM

I think Cohn is off by not factoring the new ganja billionares , multinationals with their lobbyist protecting interest who will be a factor in 2016.

It might be a very divisive issue,come election time for the repugs.

HL · January 3, 2014, 05:10 PM

Talking about economics, Colorado will see $65 million increase in taxes this year from weed.

It means less tax burden on local citizens....

My guess is that other States will eventually see the light.

**Sir X** · January 3, 2014, 05:31 PM

Thats just taxes ,they havent even factored in savings in the criminal justice system in the millions.The white man shall lead the way,nuh true H.l ?

Marijuana today is a craft-scale industry. It may not stay that way very long. Bigger players are waiting in the wings. In the past year, Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML, the nation's biggest marijuana-*advocacy group, has met half a dozen times with representatives of the beer, wine and liquor industries. They've talked about the coming legalization of marijuana and what it will mean for the sector of what St. Pierre calls "problematic adult commerce." The NORML leader didn't ask for those meetings. The booze people came to him.

It's easy to assume that Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol are licking their chops at the emerging marijuana industry, waiting for their chance to scoop up a massive share of the market. In truth, it's not that simple. Tobacco, St. Pierre tells me, has production and distribution channels that could easily absorb cannabis. "But they don't have the Dionysian background," he says. "The alcohol guys, they're in the pleasure business. They know how that works."

Beer companies are the most likely first movers. Beer sales have been slipping in recent decades, as more Americans move up to wine or cocktails. Their customer seeks an inexpensive, low-level buzz. Here's one way to think about it: At the end of the week, the beer consumer has 20 bucks in his pocket. He can spend that all on beer, or maybe he buys a six-pack and a gram of pot. "I think they'll be happy to sell you both," says St. Pierre.

Alcohol companies also have excellent working relationships with state lawmakers and regulators. That's no small thing. Legalization rides on the growing belief that marijuana should be treated like alcohol, not like heroin or cocaine. For the feds to go along with these pilot projects, they need assurance that state officials can turn pot into a product as tightly regulated as beer or wine.

As it turned out, fate blessed the legalization movement with two governors prepared to offer that assurance. Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) and Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) could have obstructed or delayed implementation of the adult-use laws. Both opposed it during the campaign. But once the voters spoke, both governors chose to heed the will of their citizens and carry out the laws. To do that, they would have to persuade U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to allow their risky experiments to proceed.

Holder, like President Obama, was not a man inclined to give a stoner a break. For the past five years, the attorney general has left marijuana enforcement in the hands of local U.S. attorneys, who acted as drug czars in their own jurisdictions. Some dispensaries got raided, others didn't. If Holder didn't want legalization to proceed, he could dispatch the DEA and quash it overnight.

Starting in January 2013, state officials fed the Department of Justice a continuous stream of updates on the construction of their regulatory systems – things like security regulations, seed-to-sale tracking systems, background checks and leakage safeguards. The success of Colorado's 2011 MMJ regulations was a key selling point. Message: We can handle this.

In March, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) offered Holder political cover. "If you're going to be – because of budget cuts – prioritizing matters, I would suggest there are more serious things than minor possession of marijuana," he told the attorney general at a Senate hearing. Leahy also teamed with Tea Party darling Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to introduce legislation calling for reform of federal mandatory-minimum sentences in drug cases. The Leahy-Paul bill represented a signal moment in the beginning of the end of the War on Drugs: the alliance of drug-reform Democrats with libertarian Republicans.

Holder saw an opening and took it. He and Obama are well-aware of the toll the War on Drugs has taken on black communities. In a little-noticed mid-August memo, Holder ordered federal prosecutors to back off on mandatory minimums in low-level drug cases.

That was a good sign. But Holder remained mum about state-legal pot. Through back-channel talks with the office of John Walsh, U.S. attorney for the District of Colorado, Hickenlooper's staff had an idea of what federal officials were most concerned about (leakage into other states and the 1,000-foot rule, mainly). Neither governor had any indication of Holder's leanings. But they had hope. "During various meetings with federal officials, we were never told, 'Forget it, you're nuts,'" recalls David Postman, Inslee's communications director.

Finally, on August 29th, the attorney general placed a noon conference call to Hickenlooper and Inslee. In Denver and Olympia, a coterie of staffers gathered in the governors' offices. Holder came on the line and spoke about his decision: a green light. His office sent over a four-page memo prepared by Deputy Attorney General James Cole. The key passage: In states with "strong and effective regulatory and enforcement systems to control the cultivation, distribution, sale and possession of marijuana," federal officials would largely allow state and local law enforcement to address marijuana-related activity.

The operative term was "control." For the past 76 years, that word had been "prohibited." The feds didn't abandon their authority over marijuana. The Cole memo said that for now, federal law enforcement agencies would step back and let state and local officials proceed with their pilot project in cannabis control.

The staffers in the two governors' offices held their breath as Inslee and Hickenlooper thanked the attorney general. Then they hung up. There were no great hurrahs or backslaps in Denver or Olympia. Just relief that nearly a year's worth of work had not been in vain, and a feeling of confidence that the system each state had designed was going to work.

Marijuana is legal in Colorado and Washington, at least until President Obama leaves office in January 2017. The two states have exactly three years to show the rest of the nation that a safe and sane post-prohibition world is possible.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...#ixzz2pNC1l9Bs
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

**Gamma** · January 3, 2014, 05:37 PM

so is it a good thing or...not?

**Sir X** · January 3, 2014, 05:37 PM

The OPERATIVE WORD JAMAICA :

The operative term was "control." For the past 76 years, that word had been "prohibited." The feds didn't abandon their authority over marijuana. The Cole memo said that for now, federal law enforcement agencies would step back and let state and local officials proceed with their pilot project in cannabis control.

HL · January 3, 2014, 05:46 PM

wats YOUR answer

**Gamma** · January 3, 2014, 06:08 PM

same it has been for years it is good business and well overdue.

no need for you to answer ....

**Sir X** · January 4, 2014, 06:29 PM

New York State Is Set to Loosen Marijuana Laws

By SUSANNE CRAIG and JESSE McKINLEY

Published: January 4, 2014

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ALBANY — Joining a growing group of states that have loosened restrictions on marijuana, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York plans this week to announce an executive action that would allow limited use of the drug by those with serious illnesses, state officials say.

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The turnabout by Mr. Cuomo, who had long resisted legalizing medical marijuana, comes as other states are taking increasingly liberal positions on it — most notably Colorado, where thousands have flocked to buy the drug for recreational use since it became legal on Jan. 1.
Mr. Cuomo’s plan will be far more restrictive than the laws in Colorado or California, where medical marijuana is available to people with conditions as mild as backaches. It will allow just 20 hospitals across the state to prescribe marijuana to patients with cancer, glaucoma or other diseases that meet standards to be set by the New York State Department of Health.
While Mr. Cuomo’s measure falls well short of full legalization, it nonetheless moves New York, long one of the nation’s most punitive states for those caught using or dealing drugs, a significant step closer to policies being embraced by marijuana advocates and lawmakers elsewhere.
New York hopes to have the infrastructure in place this year to begin dispensing medical marijuana, although it is too soon to say when it will actually be available to patients.
Mr. Cuomo’s change of heart comes at an interesting political juncture. In neighboring New Jersey, led by Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican whose presidential prospects are talked about even more often than Mr. Cuomo’s, medical marijuana was approved by his predecessor, Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat, but implemented only after Mr. Christie put in place rules limiting its strength, banning home delivery, and requiring patients to show they have exhausted conventional treatments. The first of six planned dispensaries has already opened.
Meanwhile, New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, had quickly seemed to overshadow Mr. Cuomo as the state’s leading progressive politician.
For Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat who has often found common ground with Republicans on fiscal issues, the sudden shift on marijuana — which he will announce on Wednesday in his annual State of the State address — was the latest of several instances in which he has embarked on a major social policy effort sure to bolster his popularity with a large portion of his political base.
In 2011, he successfully championed the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York. And a year ago, in the aftermath of the mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Mr. Cuomo pushed through legislation giving New York some of the nation’s toughest gun-control laws, including a strict ban on assault weapons. He also has pushed, unsuccessfully so far, to strengthen abortion rights in state law.
The governor’s action also comes as advocates for changing drug laws have stepped up criticism of New York City’s stringent enforcement of marijuana laws, which resulted in nearly 450,000 misdemeanor charges between 2002 and 2012, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates more liberal drug laws.
During that same period, medical marijuana became increasingly widespread outside New York, with some 20 states and the District of Columbia now allowing its use.
Mr. Cuomo voiced support for changing drug laws as recently as the 2013 legislative session, when he backed an initiative to decriminalize so-called open view possession of 15 grams or less. And though he said he remained opposed to medical marijuana, he indicated as late as April that he was keeping an open mind.
His about-face, according to a person briefed on the governor’s views but not authorized to speak on the record, was rooted in his belief that the program he has drawn up can help those in need, while limiting the potential for abuse. Given Mr. Cuomo’s long-held concerns, this person said, he insisted that it be a test program so he can monitor its impact.
But Mr. Cuomo is also up for election this year, and polls have shown overwhelming support for medical marijuana in New York: 82 percent of New York voters approved of the idea in a survey by Siena College last May.
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New York State Is Set to Loosen Marijuana Laws

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Still, Mr. Cuomo’s plan is sure to turn heads in Albany, the state’s capital. Medical marijuana bills have passed the State Assembly four times — most recently in 2013 — only to stall in the Senate, where a group of breakaway Democrats shares leadership with Republicans, who have traditionally been lukewarm on the issue.

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Mr. Cuomo has decided to bypass the Legislature altogether.
In taking the matter into his own hands, the governor is relying on a provision in the public health law known as the Antonio G. Olivieri Controlled Substance Therapeutic Research Program. It allows for the use of controlled substances for “cancer patients, glaucoma patients, and patients afflicted with other diseases as such diseases are approved by the commissioner.”
Mr. Olivieri was a New York City councilman and state assemblyman who died in 1980 at age 39. Suffering from a brain tumor, he used marijuana to overcome some of the discomfort of chemotherapy, and until his death lobbied for state legislation to legalize its medical use.
The provision, while unfamiliar to most people, had been hiding in plain sight since 1980.
But with Mr. Cuomo still publicly opposed to medical marijuana, state lawmakers had been pressing ahead with new legislation that would go beyond the Olivieri statute.
Richard N. Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat who leads the assembly’s health committee, has held two public hearings on medical marijuana in recent weeks, hoping to build support for a bill under which health care professionals licensed to prescribe controlled substances could certify patient need.
Mr. Gottfried said the state’s historical recalcitrance on marijuana was surprising.
“New York is progressive on a great many issues, but not everything,” he said.
Mr. Gottfried said he wanted a tightly regulated and licensed market, with eligible patients limited to those with “severe, life-threatening or debilitating conditions,” not the broader range of ailments — backaches and anxiety, for instance — that pass muster in places like California, which legalized medical marijuana in 1996.
“What we are looking at bears no resemblance to the California system,” Mr. Gottfried said.
While he was aware of the Olivieri statute, he believed it had not been implemented because it would have required “an elaborate administrative approval process,” which he said could be overly burdensome on patients.
Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, praised Mr. Cuomo’s decision as “a bold and innovative way of breaking the logjam” in Albany, though it may not be the final word on medical marijuana.
Mr. Cuomo “remains committed to developing the best medical marijuana law in the country,” Mr. Nadelmann said. “And that’s going to require legislative action.”
The administration has much work to do before its program is operational: For starters, it must select the participating hospitals, which officials said would be chosen to assure “regional diversity” and according to how extensively they treat patients with or research pertinent illnesses like cancer or glaucoma.
Another hurdle: State and federal laws prohibit growing marijuana, even for medical uses, though the Obama administration has tolerated it. So New York will have to find an alternative supply of cannabis. The likely sources could include the federal government or law enforcement agencies, officials said.

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