nbc news proposal. Beyond legalizing pot, the ballot initiative would have given campaign donors direct rights to the state's 10 pot farms as an
explicit gift for their support. It was, even legalization advocates argued, a flagrant display of would-be members of the pot industry trying to cash in on a movement motivated primarily by social justice issues.
But while Ohio's measure was rare in its blatant cash grab, some legalization backers are increasingly concerned that something like Ohio's initiative will become standard — and the interests of the pot industry, which will grow more and more as legalization spreads, will take priority over the public's best interests.
Related Ohio's marijuana proposal was lambasted for creating a cartel. But pot cartels could work.
Dan Riffle, the former director of federal policy at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a legalization advocacy group, recently told me that these concerns pushed him to leave MPP. In a revealing interview, he said that "the industry is taking over the movement."
"We used to talk three or four years ago about how we're creating this industry, yet nobody in the industry gives to MPP," Riffle said. "But now that they do give at least a little, it's like, 'Be careful what you asked for.' Because we owe them now, and they get to drive the agenda."
More than posing as a concern for the face and heart of the legalization movement, the worry that the industry will take over poses some challenges on the policy end as well. As support for marijuana legalization continues to grow, the question is quickly shifting from
whether to legalize to how to legalize. And a movement that's led by a pot industry has different interests than the public and policy reformers might have.
On marijuana legalization, policy experts and industry interests clash
Drug policy experts have long argued that the best approach to legalizing marijuana is a restrained policy — one that limits access to cannabis by, for instance, putting state governments
directly in charge
of production and sales, or only letting nonprofits sell and distribute pot. The idea is to curb the excess and mass production associated with commercialization — and the drug abuse it could lead to — while ending prohibition and its harms, including more incarceration and a black market for pot that helps fund and sustain criminal groups around the world.
For more on this line of argument, watch this previous interview with Mark Kleiman, drug policy expert at New York University's Marron Institute:
But from the marijuana industry's perspective, mass production and excess are good — since they provide more chances for profits even if they lead to more pot abuse. (Tobacco and alcohol companies, after all, directly
profit from people's addiction.) So it's in the industry's interest to fight stricter regulations — and especially proposals that don't let for-profit pot businesses take root.
Even last year, it seemed like both sides were getting their fair share of attention as Colorado and Washington state worked through regulations for their newly legal pot industries. But today, even legalization advocates acknowledge that the industry will play a significant role moving forward — and might even take over entirely after 2016.
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