Is Money Influencing the Nation’s Position on Marijuana?

The existing process to vet medication in the United States takes time. It is controlled by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and involves lots of research and numerous scientific trials. It is also a system that has been recognized and emulated throughout the world because of its quality assurances.

Yet since 1996, 23 states ignored the existing system and went to the public to determine whether marijuana is a medicine. The nation is choosing to bypass the world-renowned, best-practice process that was established to assure public safety.

Further, since 2012 we have experienced another legalization movement for marijuana — state laws making recreational use of marijuana legal. This despite the fact that marijuana is a Schedule I drug and under our federal judicial system, it is an illegal drug to possess, use or sell.

How has this happened? What is influencing the American public? Just follow the money.

The power and influence of strategic promotion and the influence of well-positioned advertising is known. Promoters choose and pay a high price for the optimal ad placement to influence the public about their products. The average cost of a 30-second commercial spot during the Super Bowl – some of the most expensive advertising airtime – is $3.5 million. While not quite as high, the cost for a 30-second spot during other popular shows is not cheap: The Big Bang Theory is $627,300, Modern Family is $226,935 and The Voice costs $262,041. Influencing the public can be difficult to do if there isn’t a large budget behind the effort.

It can be argued that this lesson is not lost on marijuana supporters. On November 4, Alaska, Oregon and Washington D.C. citizens voted to join the states of Washington and Colorado making marijuana legal for recreational use. Bill proponents in all three locals spent a total of $9 million and opponents spent $400,000 campaigning for their respective positions according to Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM).

Expensive, strategic promotion administers a controlled message and gets it out quickly. It works to strike a chord with its target and influence directly. Opposite that approach is experience, acquired knowledge and resulting wisdom. Unfortunately, this approach takes time, hence the adage, “lessons learned.”

There was a David and Goliath promotional battle-of-the-dollars spent on the recreational use of marijuana during mid-term elections. Given that, are we sure that we, the public, are armed with the information needed to bypass the FDA and federal law and make an educated decision to legalize marijuana?

Interestingly, while marijuana for recreational use passed in Alaska, Oregon and D.C., the support for marijuana legalization has actually decreased from 58% in 2013to 51% this year. Gallup Poll analysts indicated that public support for legalization may have weakened in the last year after news reports about the sale of marijuana-infused edible products in Colorado that could appeal to children and deaths related to consuming too much marijuana. Is this a result of the “lessons learned” approach beginning to have an effect?

Gaining experience, acquired knowledge and wisdom needed for critical thinking and the decision-making process is slow and fueled by grassroots efforts often in lieu of promotion and advertising dollars. Perhaps informing the public about this complex issue of whether marijuana should be embraced as a medicine or a legally acceptable recreational drug is indeed slowly taking place as news stories begin to compound. However, will it be in time; before the mighty promotional dollars have made our clear-headed reactions too late?

These news reports may be contributing to the decline in popularity for legalization.

• In Colorado, promised tax benefits are falling short of the projections. The projected $41 million in new tax revenue from the sale of marijuana for the first half of 2014 was not realized, a little less than $19 million was actually collected—missing the mark by more than 50%.
• With the passage of time, the costs-of-doing-business (COB) are being reported. Jo McGuire, member of the Governor’s Task Force in Colorado implementing the state’s legalized marijuana legislation, reported in Occupational Health & Safety magazine that marijuana for medical use was promoted as a revenue stream. Yet she shared this has not happened as the March 2013 Performance Audit of Colorado’s system (touted as the world’s finest regulatory implementation) showed heavy financial losses to the point of operating at a deficit with violations of the regulatory system rampant.
• We are beginning to look at highway safety as collateral damage of marijuana legalization. The Colorado Department of Transportation Drugged Driving Statistics reports there was a 114% increase in fatal motor vehicle crashes involving at least one driver who tested positive for marijuana from 2006 to 2011.
• Studies are now showing that in states with legalized marijuana, youth (12-17) use is escalating at a faster pace than in other states –even though most laws specifically restrict youth from using. The top 10 states with the highest rate of current marijuana use among youth are all medical-marijuana states whereas the bottom 10 are all non-medical marijuana states, according to SAMHSA’s “National Survey on Drug Use and Health Model.”   In part the factors that are contributing to this phenomenon are accessibility and reduced perception of harm. The 2013 government-backed study, Monitoring the Future reported “60 percent of high school seniors say marijuana is not harmful.”
• With the passage of time, we now have studies to know that youth use is bad.   Reported in the National Institute on Drug Abuse NIDA Notes, a 25 year study of over 1,000 participants illustrated that regular use of marijuana can have a detrimental effect on IQ. Researchers found that if a youth under age 18 becomes dependent on marijuana, they could lose up to eight IQ points. This decrease can impact their ability to get an education, find and hold a good job, and help keep America competitive.
• Additionally over time, reports are surfacing from each state with legalized marijuana outlining the costly burdens being faced by employers. We are learning that the erupting operational landscape for employers dealing with marijuana use by their workforces is tremendously complex. With increased marijuana use employers are facing challenges primarily in three areas: risk management (accidents), lost productivity, and costly litigation.

In determining the best practice going forward with legalization and commercialization of marijuana, it may be time to slow down, generate, seek and review all the data. We do have some years of experience now, some advanced studies and an opportunity to make more informed decisions as a nation. We suggest that the short cut of strategic and expensive influence ($9M spent in Alaska, Oregon, D.C. campaigns), as demonstrated in this last election, compared to the effect of sporadic, factual news reports, such as those bulleted here + $400K, may not be serving our country well at this point with the marijuana discussion and decisions.

Unfortunately the slow system of learning by experience, acquired knowledge and resulting wisdom often gets ramrodded when money can buy a pass around the process.

Return to Home Page

(DON’T FORGET: Click on the boxes to the right for our columns)