The Marijuana Industry Needs to Lighten Up

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Marijuana is for fun, right? Apparently, it depends on whom you ask. Some pockets of the industry have put on airs in an attempt to control the messaging while showing disdain for stoner society of the past. Others pray at the alter of their miracle drug, as if pot is some plant with medical benefits that Dr. Oz describes with words like “magic.” If the cannabis industry wants to survive without creating a “Big Pot” sort of lobby to which comparisons to tobacco may be drawn, then they better stop taking it so seriously, and start presenting the drug at face value for what it is: a recreational drug.

Post-Prohibition America, an article by Rick Macey in the August 2014 issue of THC Magazine, paraphrases a spokesperson for the Northwest Patient Resource Center by recounting, “legalization is a process, not an event.”  What’s funny about that statement is that marijuana was voted into legality as a matter of personal choice and liberty, and then given over to the state to be regulated as some sort of fundraiser for its coffers. Even the Colorado Association for Chiefs of Police is asking for more money to enforce marijuana, since it’s legal now.

A moment for the cognitive dissonance to settle in from that last sentence… .

Don’t overstate the benefits of marijuana to society. For instance, it was last year that Colorado projected they’d be raking in $4 or $5 million a month in the special sales tax and excise tax placed on recreational weed. Apparently Andrew Freedman, the Director of Marijuana Coordination for Colorado’s governor, was still using those numbers in June at the Cannabis Business Summit, according to Macey’s article. However, the numbers posted every month on the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division’s tax page are much lower, ranging from $1.6 million a month to $3.4 million. Even with Colorado’s regular sales tax, which is also charged to medical marijuana transactions, the tax rake on marijuana hasn’t brought in $5 million a month.

The point is there is revenue there; there is tax revenue taken by the state, but when the PR campaign for legal marijuana is about how much tax revenue is being created, and the actual numbers are lower than the messaging claims, there’s disappointment and uproar. There is the need to address the problem and find out how to get the taxes the state feels like it deserves. By overstating the facts, and treating the marijuana tax boon for Colorado like some sort of panacea for the state’s ills, the industry has turned the $24.5 million the state has made in taxes into a letdown.

Furthermore, keep in mind that consumers aren’t really fans of taxes. Sure, they voted for these taxes in Colorado, but that election included everyone in the state, not only the stoners. In fact, taxes don’t usually pass in Colorado, thanks to TABOR requiring a vote for any new tax, so the fact that a really high tax on weed passed in this case is particularly telling.

Legalization supporters and marijuana businesses should not diminish the public health arguments either. Macey bristles in his article at the suggestion from Freedman that there’s a need to protect the public health through regulation. Macey asks whether that means the state will pander to the needs of the public health. Among things that should not be pandered to is the protection of public health. The public health needs to be addressed by the marijuana industry. Tobacco used to be touted for health benefits, and that idea still persists in parts of the world today. Many studies on marijuana point out that there needs to be more studies, and the effect of long-term exposure to marijuana smoke remains unclear.

In fact, the industry needs to listen to the public health arguments. Marijuana has been folk medicine for thousands of years, since the days of the caveman, as any stoner will say. Now it is being touted as a miracle drug, as if it’s being presented by Dr. Oz. Marijuana, like any other herbal supplement, isn’t really regulated for potency, and the medical claims are more or less protected by free speech than anything else. That means they can say whatever they want about the effects; really, it seems it’s up to the Federal Trade Commission to decide if it’s truthful or not. What does the FTC know about marijuana?

Crowd sourcing the benefits for particular strains isn’t the best way to come up with a list of benefits either, like how Leafly posts the uses of a particular strain based on what users of their apps say. Marijuana needs clinical tests and that’s really what the industry should be pushing for, more government funding for marijuana studies. They should study benefits as derived from the whole plant, as well as long-term effects on health and well-being for all modes of ingestion.

Right now, the industry is confused. Back to Macey at the Cannabis Business Summit, he claimed Roger Goodman, a state legislator from Washington, said that the term “recreational marijuana” is “demeaning.” Macey said that “THC Magazine” agrees with that, and prefers the term “adult use,” which would be hyphenated if used to describe a word such as “marijuana.” It’s a shame Macey and his magazine feel this way, because the question should be why is it demeaning to describe pot as recreational?

When did weed get so high and mighty? What is adult use? What uses beyond medical and recreational (*gasp*) are there? Indeed, sick people turn to marijuana as a source of relief, and for the reputed health benefits. However, none of those benefits have been proven by the FDA. What has been proven is that people have gotten marijuana prescriptions in the past mainly to buy marijuana for recreational use. A lot of people. Face it, marijuana is wacky tabacky. It may prove to have other uses than getting stoned, just like alcohol has been proven to clean resin out of pipes. But the big attraction of weed has more to do with what Snoop Dogg raps about than what some lobbyist, businessman or bureaucrat has to say.

 

References

Macey, R. (August 2014). Post-Prohibition America: Progress and Peril as Legalization Moves Forward. THC Magazine.

Matt Berg is a writer from Northwest Denver. Matt writes on a range of topics including science, music, motorcycles, politics, sports and more. He is always looking for adventure and his next story to tell. Connect with Matt on Twitter: @tomjoad187.

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