Now Is the Time to Embrace, Not Abandon, Cannabis Activism
For over five decades, NORML and its grassroots supporters have advocated for ending the criminalization, discrimination, and stigmatization of cannabis consumers. We have been deliberate and diligent in our efforts to change the way people talk and think about the marijuana plant and those who consume it.
It’s been – and it remains – an uphill battle. Our movement challenges powerful special interests, like law enforcement. Our work is deeply underfunded. Our advocates are often underrepresented in the mainstream media and in the political arena. But we are winning nonetheless because our message is irrefutable: It makes no sense from a public health perspective, a fiscal perspective, or a moral perspective to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate adults who choose to responsibly consume a substance that is objectively safer than either alcohol or tobacco.
Many supporters now believe, falsely, that nationwide legalization is some sort of fait accompli and therefore, there’s no longer a need for grassroots advocacy. This perception is woefully incorrect. Our political and cultural opponents have not gone away. In many cases, they have regrouped and re-strategized. Knowing that their side has lost the war of ideas, they’ve pivoted to targeting democracy itself – at times attacking and undermining the ballot initiative process, in other instances, overturning marijuana-related election results they disapprove of. In jurisdictions where cannabis is legal, they are chipping away at consumers’ hard-won freedoms by lobbying for arbitrary potency limits (which would re-criminalize certain cannabis products as well as those who produce and consume them), pushing for artificially high sale taxes, and calling on cities and towns to impose bans on marijuana-related businesses.
Others presume that the corporate cannabis industry can sufficiently and successfully carry our movement to the next level. This is wishful thinking. While some players in the commercial cannabis space do provide limited financial support for grassroots activism, most cannot or do not. More concerningly, the interests of the cannabis industry do not always align with those of consumers. Issues that matter most to the cannabis community, such as securing home cultivation rights, expunging past criminal convictions, ending workplace discrimination, and strengthening parental rights, often get short shrift from industry players – who are far more likely to utilize their resources to lobby for changes in corporate tax codes and industry-specific regulations.
In this vacuum, it is critical that activist groups like NORML and other grassroots organizers ensure that consumers’ voices, rather than corporate interests, remain prominent in the ongoing public policy debate. After all, there is no cannabis industry without cannabis consumers.