By
Jay Fox
Brooklyn,
NY, USA
Part
I of this article looked at the opportunities the cannabis industry presents to
investors, the science of the plant, and the difficulties that have arisen
because of the clash between state and federal laws regarding cannabis. Many of
these difficulties pertain to the legal obstacles facing researchers trying to
study the effects of cannabis and the various cannabinoids on humans. However,
scientists are not the only ones who are struggling to keep up.
One
of the first things you notice when you enter the cannabis space is that there
is a lack of knowledge everywhere you look, and that even the more seasoned
veterans
seem to be flying by the seat of their pants. This is not willed
ignorance. This is what happens when an industry is springing up around your
feet not unlike a weed. Unforeseen circumstances arise and you have to deal
with them. It’s the kind of thing that gets a lot of the serial entrepreneur
types off, but it’s also the kind of thing that keeps practical businesspeople
and investors from joining in the green rush.
 |
| Jay Fox |
Despite
the declining stigma surrounding cannabis among the public and in state
capitols throughout the country, the federal government still views it as a
menace. Consequently, there continues to be a high degree of uncertainty within
the industry because federal agencies are simply refusing to fulfill their
functions; to do so would be to grant the industry some degree of legitimacy at
the federal level, which would contradict one of the underlying premises of the
War on Drugs—that there are no “hard” drugs or “soft” drugs because all drugs
beyond the realm of those produced by the pharmaceutical industry are
categorically bad. Private industry is attempting to fill this void left by the
feds, but no one knows if the companies contracted out to fulfill these
functions are totally legit or not, or if they have either a surreptitious
agenda of their own or conflicts of interest. Without an independent arbiter,
it is difficult even for the most educated among these consumers to tell fact
from fiction.
A
prime example is organic certification. To receive organic certification, a
grower needs to be evaluated by the USDA. However, because the USDA is a
federal agency, and cannabis plants that are defined as marijuana are illegal
according to the federal government, the USDA cannot award organic
certification to said plants. Similarly, the FDA needs to establish guidelines
about what kinds of fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides can be used on hemp
and at what levels they can be present. They also need to begin validating the
claims made by companies selling things like CBD. At this point in time, no one
is actually evaluating these products because the rules that would regulate
this process have yet
to be written.
This
would be a concern even if CBD were a fringe supplement as it once was, but
this is no longer the case. There are a lot of consumers taking CBD, according
to Gerald Pascarelli, a research associate at Cowen, a multinational investment
bank and financial services company. During his keynote address at the Sixth
Annual Cannabis World Congress & Business Exposition at the Javits Center
in New York in late May, Pascarelli told the audience that 6.9% of people who
participated in a January survey said they used CBD. That may not seem like a
lot, but it is approximately double the number of people who are using a
product that has become ubiquitous recently: the electronic cigarettes made by
Juul. Only between 3% and 4% of those surveyed said they were users.
This
reoccurring problem—that one often finds a blank space where regulations,
legislation, laws, and research should be—is not only bad for consumers; it’s
bad for business, as well. It’s even bad for federally chartered banks who may
want to get into the industry. As Brent Johnson, a managing attorney at the
Colorado-based Hoban Law Group told me following the second day of Benzinga,
“It’s not that it’s illegal to bank with cannabis. Marijuana is illegal.” For
federal banks, he continued, “it’s just too much of a risk for them. Their FDIC
insurance is at risk. The FDIC has said that they’re not going to provide
insurance for banks who bank in this space. So that’s why all the big banks
haven’t done it.”
Though
Merrill Lynch and Bank of America are now beginning to cover some cannabis
companies, the majority of the lending is coming from smaller, state-chartered
banks. Because they are chartered at the state level, and not the federal
level, they are free to operate in the cannabis realm so long as the state
allows it, but there is still the somewhat remote possibility that the federal
government could just freeze these assets because cannabis remains illegal and
because former Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded an Obama-era memo
issued by US Deputy Attorney General James Cole (hence the reason why this
document is commonly referred to as the Cole Memo), which stated that the
federal government would not enforce prohibition in states with regulatory and
enforcement systems. To offset the risk, these banks are charging relatively
high fees that push the costs of starting a business into a realm that many
people can’t afford.
Even
without these additional costs, deciding to form a company takes a lot of money
and requires one assume a lot of risk. On the one hand, new owners typically
have to spend money on things like rent, equipment, and employees. On the
other, new businesses tend to take a few weeks, months, or years to take off.
Receiving a line of credit through a small business loan allows normal people
to cover these costs and to survive from the time the company is founded until
it becomes profitable. These loans are one of the only ways middle class people
can start a business, and they are vital the economy. When you can’t get a
small business loan, chances are you can’t start a business. Furthermore, when
the only loan you can get comes with some pretty thick strings attached to it,
this can present a significant deterrent when you’re doing your cost-benefit
analysis.
Those
who decide to eschew banking entirely face additional problems. Christian
Hageseth, the CEO of ONE Cannabis Group and
the founder of Green Man Cannabis
in Colorado, told an audience at the CWCB Expo that he did not initially have a
bank when he opened his first Green Man dispensary in Denver a decade ago. This
meant he had to operate as a cash industry, pay for heightened security, design
vault procedures, and pay his staff (and taxes) without the use of checks. He
said that performing these types of tasks inhouse, rather than relying on a
bank, was costing him upwards of $20,000 in labor each month. Even after he
began banking with Safe Harbor,
he still faces heightened scrutiny over his financials and continues to be
unable to accept credit cards due to prohibition at the federal level.
Another
cost of starting a business that deals with marijuana, and not hemp, is that
these entrepreneurs cannot deduct general operating expenses due to a
little-known part of the federal tax code known as 280E, which was
drafted in 1982 to keep people who traffic illicit drugs from writing off their
expenses. As Mr. Johnson told me at Benzinga, “280E is a code of the tax
section that basically says you cannot deduct general operating expenses for an
illegally run business.” Because cannabis is still a controlled substance as
defined by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, 280E applies keeps cannabis
from writing off many of their expenses.
Not
being able to write off these expenses would be a pretty significant kick in
the pants to any startup. Think of a hypothetical media startup. To get the
business off the ground, you need to hire a few writers and get computers,
desks, and a space in which to work. Writing off these expenses will likely
save you from paying thousands of dollars in taxes. When you’re attempting to
acquire serious amounts of acreage, security systems, and all the components
necessary to grow thousands of cannabis plants, not being able to write off
these expenses means millions in additional tax liabilities. Even though you
may earn profits that dwarf whatever is earned by the hypothetical media
company above, the startup costs are astronomical by comparison and the
inability to deduct these items may prove to be an insurmountable hurdle.
Some
states have additional financial barriers to prevent people from entering the
industry. New York
requires a $200,000 registration fee; applicants in Utah
need to show they have $500,000 in liquid assets when applying for a license to
cultivate; and large cultivators in Ohio
need to pay $200,000 in annual renewal fees after shelling out $20,000 for an
application fee and $180,000 for a license fee. In Connecticut,
meanwhile, licensed producers may be required to “maintain an escrow amount in
a financial institution in [Connecticut] in an amount of two millions dollars.”
Even
though most jurisdictions do not have requirements this daunting, cannabis
entrepreneurs still face difficulties when applying for a license. Dr. Chanda Macias,
a cannabis entrepreneur and molecular biologist by training who has been in the
industry since 2012, described the process of applying for a medical dispensary
in the District of Colombia as having three obstacles. Writing the application,
she told me during an interview at the expo at the Javits Center, “was
literally sixteen-hour days, for a matter of three months.” Following this, she
said, “I had to show proof of funds, so that was a little hard, but I had my
house that I could say is worth this much value and I could always cash it out.
The last thing I had to have was the real estate.” Oftentimes, the license is
tied to a piece of real estate, and “you actually have to sign a lease and pay
for the lease even while you’re being evaluated, even though you don’t have the
license.” In other words, you have to pay rent on a space that you can’t use.
As
a black woman, Dr. Macias told me that she faced additional problems. “It’s
hard even for a black woman to get a loan for a small business, period,” she
said, “so then you think you put on the financial risk of cannabis, which is
still illegal, it’s almost impossible for minorities to get access in this
industry.”
Ultimately,
Dr. Macias went into foreclosure because of the difficulties she faced. However,
she persevered and is now the owner and general manager of the National Holistic Healing Center Medical
Marijuana Dispensary, as well as the chairwoman of the Board of Managers
for Women Grow, a for-profit organization
that works to increase the influence and presence of women within the cannabis
industry. She’s also one of the loveliest people you may ever meet, a hugger,
and operating in three states. She hopes to soon be operating in two
more—Maryland and New Jersey.
Not
everyone fares as well as Dr. Macias, unfortunately. The financial barriers
that have been put into place require cannabis entrepreneurs to assume massive
amounts of risk with their own money, incur significant fees from smaller
banks, or have friends who are rich enough to be willing to make a
multimillion-dollar gamble. Consequently, many never take the plunge.
This
reveals how integral investors are to the cannabis industry. Without them, many
will deem entry into the industry too risky or, worse, won’t be able to get
their business off the ground. Capital largely decides not only who wins and
who loses at this game, but who even gets to play.
Furthermore,
as it becomes more costly to enter the cannabis industry and more difficult to
start a business without connections to serious finance, there is a concern
that the very people who have suffered the most from the War on Drugs are
effectively going to be locked out from participating in this
once-in-a-generation business opportunity because they don’t have access to
capital. Another group who has been locked out are felons. Not only does a
felony charge make an individual ineligible for loans and licenses; it may keep
them from obtaining a job within the industry, as hiring a felon may jeopardize
a company’s ability to work with a bank. This is a particularly bitter pill to
swallow for people who were active in the cannabis industry while it was still
an illicit market and were charged with felonies as a consequence.
While
there are organizations, such as Women Grow, that run clinics to guide people
through the process of getting charges either sealed or expunged, it is still a
long and arduous process. According to Dr. Macias, it can take six to twelve
months. For an industry that is moving at light speed, this is simply untenable
for any potential entrepreneur.
“A Bunch of Irrational People Gave Me a Bunch
of Money”
Arguably
the most successful cannabis entrepreneur as of this moment is Bruce Linton.
The first time I saw him it was the week after Benzinga and the announcement
that his company, Canopy Growth,
had merged with Acreage Holdings
for $3.4 billion. There is a quiet confidence about Linton that suggests a
razor-sharp intellect, as well as a the kind of audacity to do mighty things
that brings to mind the words of Teddy Roosevelt (“Far better it is to dare
mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure … than
to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they
live in a gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”). He also
looked like the cat who caught the canary, largely because the Acreage merger
was the single largest deal in the history of the industry. He had spent the
morning at the New York Stock Exchange, which is where his company will soon be
listed, but is still not allowed to be photographed with or to touch the
hallowed bell that announces the opening and closing of trading for the day.
Linton
sits before an audience of several hundred people in the Prince George Ballroom
in New York City ready to respond to a series of adulating questions from Josh
Weinstein, the founder of CannaGather—a
company created five years beforehand to host networking and educational events
revolving around the cannabis industry. Linton talks about the importance of
buying properties in communities that need investment, of putting resources
back into these communities, of practicing sustainability, of paying employees
exceptionally well in terms of both salary and equity, and of running a company
with a generally left-leaning outlook.
He
also touches on the birth of his company and his arrival in the cannabis space.
Prior to the switch, he was a self-described “tech nerd.” Specifically, he
designed networks to ensure that packets of information did not get lost when
people made purchases on Wall Street. In other words, his expertise was based
on collecting and not losing vital pieces of information.
Due
to a landmark case in Ontario Superior Court that was initially decided in 2011
(R. v. Mernagh), it became clear that
Canada’s medical marijuana industry was going to be reformed. By 2012, Linton
could foresee that Canada was eventually going to need a platform to regulate
and oversee the supply chains of medical cannabis throughout the provinces. At
this time, he thought to himself: “If I can design a network for invisible bits
of information, I can probably design one for cannabis.
Unfortunately,
the Canadian model didn’t require just a design. Linton needed to fully build
out his operation, which required several million dollars that he, of course,
didn’t have. Investors, however, were willing to take a risk, and, as he puts
it, “A bunch of irrational people gave me a bunch of money.” Those irrational
people are probably pretty happy with their decision. The initial value of the
stock was $0.29. Shares now hover somewhere between $45 and $50. In other
words, a $25,000 investment into Canopy six or seven years ago is now worth
somewhere between $3,879,310.34 and $4,310,344.83.
This
kind of payoff, while great for Linton and cannabis, is large enough to attract
opportunists, and there is a nagging suspicion among some cannabis activists
that this could spell trouble. Some are concerned that a great deal of the
money flooding into the space may be coming from the same people who profited
off prohibition and the War on Drugs, whether through prison construction, the
privatization of prisons (the Federal Bureau of Prisons spends approximately $1
billion, or 14% of its budget, on “contract
confinement”), the militarization of the police force, or something as
seemingly benign as investing in a rehab center or a lab to test drug tests.
While the latter two seem like the kinds of things that we should applaud and
demand more of to combat the opioid crisis and to get people the help they
need, shady facilities can gouge addicts and make millions from insurance
fraud, thereby allowing them to reward their investors handsomely. As Ryan
Hampton notes in his recent book, American
Fix: Inside the Opioid Addiction Crisis—And How to End It, one particularly
unethical facility in Florida charged one patient $300,000
on urine tests alone.
The
concern is not merely that these shady investors are going to use their
ill-gotten gains to profit from cannabis. It is an issue, since, in most cases,
their profits are perfectly legal, and the companies or individuals who made
them are free to take their money and invest it in the green rush. Furthermore,
it’s not possible for Linton or any publicly traded company to monitor who
purchases shares of their stock and tell unethical people who have not violated
the law to buzz off. Love it or hate it for incentivizing unethical actions and
the mass incarceration of black and brown people whose entrenched poverty is
only made more severe due to their living in a police state amidst the ruins of
deindustrialized urban centers that lack opportunities or funding for programs
or schools or anything that might increase the likelihood that more people can
manumit themselves from a vicious circle of despair and prison, that’s just
late capitalism.
The
concern is also that these same individuals who made untold millions off a
tremendously unjust drug war will serve as the angel investors for people
within their network of friends or, far worse, for shady ventures that will
blink in and out of existence only for long enough to reap the benefits of
operating in an underregulated industry. Whether these cannabis carpetbaggers
are investing in or starting their own shady cannabis companies is irrelevant.
The results are the same: their ventures could both frustrate the industry’s
attempts to create a more respectable image and chase out legitimate companies
whose pockets aren’t so deep.
However,
this process of becoming more respectable (and by this, it is usually meant
more corporate) has its own problems. The cannabis industry is starting to look
a lot more like other industries in terms of the makeup of the executive
staff—more white and more male. To attract larger investors and look more
corporate, many companies are hiring executives from industries like Big
Pharma, Big Tobacco, and the beverage industry, and the pool of executives from
these industries is predominately older white dudes. In other words, this is
not an explicitly sexist or racist development (wherein someone is saying ‘We
need a white guy in here, stat’), but it does lead to the exclusion of women
and people of color because it perpetuates disparities in representation that
exist on the executive level in these other industries. An anonymous survey
of 567 founders and executives conducted by Marijuana
Business Daily found the number of female executives fell from 36% in 2015
to 27% in 2017, which is more in line with the dismal 23% average for
businesses in the US.
Anecdotal
evidence is also piling up about the changes in the industry. While speaking on
a panel at the CWCB Expo, Dr. Macias described how she still has wakeup calls
about what she described as the “reality of the situation now.” “I’ve been in
the industry since 2012, operational in multiple states, and I went into a room
of about thirty to forty-five white men and … six women.” Four were support
staff. Only Dr. Macias and one other woman were there for business.
“A
gentleman walked up to me and said, ‘Excuse me, ma’am, can you go get me a cup
of water?’” The crowd gasped before falling to a restrained murmur of
indignation. “So, for me, in New York City, in 2019, to still have that
impression about a woman’s role in this world is totally obscene. And that is
what I told him, and I paused, and I said, ‘Excuse me, sir, I don’t know where
the water is, but when you find out, please get me a cup, as well.’”
No
surprise, this was met with enthusiasm from the crowd. “And that’s why I need
you,” Dr. Macias continued. “I need you all here in this industry because we
have to revolutionize it or it’s going to be a world where #metoo is still very
common, our issues and our rights will be taken away, the glass ceiling will be
amongst us in every job opportunity. But if we’re in those leadership roles and
we create this industry, we can create a new narrative by women who believe in
men,” she said. “Because we have children, too; we love our sons, we love our
husbands. We’re not saying we’re leaving them behind, but it’s time that we
rightfully claim our place in this industry and many others.”
Won’t Someone Please Think of the Children?
The
woman next to me is petite, pleasant, and professional. To my surprise, she is
also quite friendly. Before the plane has even taxied away from the gate at
LaGuardia we begin talking and don’t stop until we deplane in Detroit. She
tells me that she had been in the city on business. I tell her I am returning
to Detroit because my friend’s dad has passed away and that I want to be there
to support him.
Throughout
the initial exchange of questions about where we’re from, where we’re going,
and how often we travel between New York and Detroit, we both attempt to glean
one another’s political leanings like two dogs sniffing one another’s asses.
The hurried dive into politics has become a common occurrence during this stage
of the culture war, and the process can quickly become ugly if one’s not
capable of hearing things with which they disagree. Had either one of us been
more hot-tempered we probably would have ended up as the unfortunate stars of
some viral video that becomes proof of rightwing bigotry or leftwing bullying.
Luckily, this was not the case. Despite our differences, we have a civil
conversation that lasts the entire flight.
This
woman is the embodiment of the kind of suburban conservativism that I was very
happy to leave behind when I moved to New York City almost eighteen years ago.
This is not to say that she is mean or rude or arrogant or dogmatic or a bad
person. She just happens to believe, as most conservatives seem to, in a value
system that places a greater emphasis on the observance of tradition and the
belief that we should be helping “our own.” This class of “our own” is not
defined in racist terms, but it does tend to preclude those who are deemed too
lazy to succeed, and it is clear to whom this class of people is in reference
even if it is never overtly said. Like other conservatives, she also has a
healthy distrust of the media because of a perceived liberal bias and seems
genuinely surprised when I tell her that most of the news outlets in New York
City despise Mayor Bill de Blasio even if he has tried to tout himself as some
kind of progressive superstar. (If you’re openly hostile to the media, as both
de Blasio and the White House have been, then their enmity toward you is more
self-fulfilling prophecy than bias.) She is also more than just a little
reluctant to believe the hype when the conversation eventually gets around to
cannabis.
Even
though a Gallup
poll from late last year found that a majority of Republicans now support
the legalization of recreational cannabis (albeit by a narrow margin), I have
noticed a generational divide. In my experience, younger Republicans oftentimes
see it as a civil liberties issue and perceive prohibition as an extension of
the nanny state, while many older Republicans think of it as a gateway drug or
a one-way ticket to psychosis largely because of how it was demonized during
the initial rumblings of the War on Drugs during the Nixon years and the
all-out assault on drugs (and urban communities) during the Reagan Revolution.
As
she is of an older generation, distrustful of the mainstream media outlets that
have recently begun celebrating all things cannabis, and so staunchly opposed
to all drugs that she has not bothered to learn much about them besides they’re
categorically bad and that you can avoid them by just saying no, she says she
was not in favor of Michigan’s decision to legalize recreational weed. Even if
she acknowledges that it has benefits and that it may be useful in certain
contexts, the idea that we should just unleash another drug with the potential
for abuse on the world is irresponsible. She is particularly upset about how dosages
are not consistent and, in the case of edibles, that delayed effects can lead
individuals to either take more and have a very bad experience or think that
they can safely drive when they initially get behind the wheel. “What happens
when it kicks in and they’re on the freeway?” she asks. Furthermore, she finds
it disgusting that so many edibles are made in candy form. To her, this is
clearly an attempt to market to children.
I
am told not to get her started about giving drugs to dogs, so I do not.
As
much as I may have disagreed with this woman, she did have several valid
points. Many companies package their edible products in a manner akin to the
packaging of candy, giving THC to dogs is a shitty thing to do, and treating
cannabis as if it is completely harmless is irresponsible. After all, it is a
drug and there are a lot of ignorant people out there who may make terrible
decisions when they consume cannabis.
In
Marijuana: The Unbaised Truth About the
World’s Most Popular Weed, Dr. Kevin Hill (an addiction specialist based at
Harvard University) echoes the sentiment expressed by the woman and provides
evidence to back up his claims rather than moralistic finger wagging. Cannabis
can impair your ability to drive. Cannabis can have a negative impact on the
brains of adolescents. Cannabis can induce a psychotic episode in individuals
who are prone to certain mental illnesses such as schizophrenia,
schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and so on. Cannabis can be
addictive—even if it is less addictive than cocaine, nicotine, alcohol, heroin,
or any of the opioids that regularly get prescribed for pain management. As it
is addictive when one is a heavy and regular user, cessation can produce
symptoms of withdrawal.
Despite
these downsides, Dr. Hill is quick to point out that this does not negate its
potential medicinal and therapeutic benefits, nor does it mean that
criminalization is necessarily wise from a policy standpoint. Furthermore, it
does not present significant risks of overdose—which is most certainly not the
case with opioids, cocaine, or alcohol—and he deems occasional use as “unlikely
to be harmful in the same way that drinking in moderation is unlikely to be
harmful.” Consequently, Dr. Hill says he supports decriminalization, but does
not believe enough research has been done to effectively regulate legalized
recreational cannabis at this time. There are still too many dangers. “I am
forced to balance a set of risks and benefits,” he writes, “and while they lean
against legalization at the moment, they may shift in favor of legalization as
we gather more data. … As much as is possible, this should be a decision based
on evidence.”
This
is not a ringing endorsement for or against cannabis by any means; it is,
instead, the kind of tenuous conclusion that comes from a reasoned look at the
facts without the use of hyperbolic language or a strawman whom he can demonize
(or “blast”). Advocates for legalization may believe that Dr. Hill’s approach
is overly cautious, but no one can accuse him of acting in bad faith, relying
on outdated beliefs about cannabis, or using the kinds of scare tactics about
how drugs are corrupting “the children” that have been employed since at least
the 1880s, according to H. Wayne Morgan, author of Drugs in America: A Social History, 1800-1980.
I
wish I could say that the conversation with the woman went in this
direction—toward an evidence-based and moderate position. It didn’t. While she
will continue to think that medicinal cannabis is acceptable so long as it is
recommended by a doctor, she will continue to view recreational weed as a
gateway drug, and she will continue to incredulously read about the virtues of
CBD in the “lamestream media.” (She’ll probably also continue to think that
it’s clever to characterize sources like the Washington Post, the New York
Times, and CNN in this way.) Though she seemed less inclined to view
recreational cannabis as a menace that can only be eliminated through strict
policies that are meant to restore law and order, it will continue to have a
stigma to her, and I honestly have no idea what could ever make her give up
this view.
***
“Edibles
have been a godsend,” my friend Liam tells me. It’s now a few hours after the
plane landed in Michigan and we’re at a bar a few blocks from my mother’s house
in Birmingham. Technically, it’s Royal Oak, as the bar is on Woodward Avenue
just south of 14 Mile. We’re both keeping our eyes firmly upon the third period
of Game 7 of the Hurricanes/Capitols series. The bartender, Chris, keeps
studying me because he can recognize my face and demeanor, but it takes him
until the first overtime to place me and ask if I’m the brother of one of his
regulars. I am.
Liam
adds that the edibles allowed his mother to sleep after she’d spent several
nights staring at the ceiling and being bombarded by the plague of emotions and
thoughts that follow the death of someone close to you. For her, it was her
husband of several decades.
“You
know, Colleen texted me. She said, ‘Welcome to the club.’”
It’s
an unenviable club to belong to. I know because I’ve been a member since 2016.
Colleen joined in 2018. Liam joined in April. It’s the reason I’m back at the
Mt. Chalet II, the bar to which I’ve been coming whenever I’m back in Michigan
since these trips morphed from visits home from New York to visits to Detroit
from home, sitting next to him and sharing a plate of nachos over a few beers.
In
those initial days when you first become a member, you experience long bouts of
remorse, visitations of regrets, and the overwhelming feeling that there will
eventually be an opportunity to say things that, unfortunately, can never be
said. You find yourself staring at their picture and missing the kinds of
idiosyncrasies and familiar stories that seemed, at the time, to age more like
bread than wine. But now they almost seem like a certain literary device, like
Homer’s “wine-dark sea” or Kilgore Trout’s “so it goes” that serve as a kind of
refrain to a song that you no longer get to hear, and the sudden disappearance
of the familiar leaves you feeling alienated and alone and unable to do more
than focus on that picture or, if in bed, the stretched shadows that come
creeping through the blinds. It’s oftentimes all you can do once the house is
quiet and the lights are out and the extended family members who’ve traveled
from near and far have paid their respects and gone back home and you’re left
with a pinecone-sized knot that turns just below your diaphragm no matter how
tightly you close your eyes or try to hypnotize yourself into oblivion with
informercials for stronger abs or nonstick cookware. Eventually, you realize
that you’re not getting to sleep without an aid.
In
my experience, that aid was alcohol. It’s a difficult thing to admit, but it
was my crutch of choice in the direct aftermath of my father’s death and the
death of friends who either took their own lives or had them savagely taken
from them due to a war that continues to this day even though it stopped making
regular headlines almost fifteen years ago. I’m certainly not alone. I have met
no shortage of people who have used booze as their temporary numbing agent or
sleep aid of choice following a death or a divorce or some other cataclysmic
event.
Most
people can put it aside after a while. Eventually, they can sleep without being
kept up by the memories of the recently departed or haunted by the far too
salient recognition that everyone eventually dies and all those additional
existentialist musings that come along for the ride. They make it through the
stages of grief successfully and do not carry the type of baggage that sees
them knock back ten or twelve or twenty drinks every day. They can once again
enjoy it in moderation.
Others
are not so lucky. What begins as a means to get to sleep or to cope gradually
becomes a vortex that exacerbates one’s existing problems while creating new
ones. One’s raging hangover is allayed by more drinking, by more mistakes, by
more hangovers, and so on. As the disease manifests itself, it terrorizes
families, destroys relationships, and leads people to make remarkably bad
decisions—like getting behind the wheel of a car when they’re so shitfaced that
they can’t tell where one lane ends and the other begins, and end up bulldozing
head-on into pedestrians, homes, and cars driven by people like my sister. She
survived. Once again, others are not so lucky.
The
notion that this poisonous vortex could be avoided with a drug that is
significantly less addictive than alcohol, produces virtually no hangover
unless one uses it regularly for months or years, and poses virtually no risk
of overdose, is yet another reason why prohibition seems so misguided.
Self-medication is certainly not going to be recommended by any doctor, but it
is how many people choose to exercise their right to use recreational cannabis
when it’s legal. Not everyone is writing stream of consciousness poetry or
jamming along with live recordings of “Dark Star,” “Harry Hood,” or “Red Clay.”
A lot of people use it to quiet the nagging pain from a minor injury, to get to
sleep, or to simply unwind. That one needs a doctor’s note to obtain a drug
that can take care of these things does not seem reasonable.
Of
course, it does present risks. It does impair one’s ability to drive. It can be
addictive. It can be abused. However, the same things can be said of alcohol, opioids,
antihistamines,
tranquilizers, benzodiazepines like Xanax or Valium (most likely the infamous
shelter of the mother’s little
helper), muscle relaxers, caffeine pills, diet pills, and over-the-counter
drugs like Tylenol and Dramamine. The kind of mental gymnastics that one must
perform to believe that all these drugs will be used responsibly, and that
cannabis will not, strains credulity.
However,
even if one wants to admit that the risks outweigh the benefits, even if one
wants to stop short of supporting legalization for recreational use, there is
no point continuing the criminalization of cannabis or treating it as a
Schedule I drug. In the case of the latter, it frustrates entrepreneurship,
creates a labyrinth of red tape that even seasoned compliance officers can
barely understand, and suppresses job growth in an industry that could
revitalize many parts of the country (such as the Rust Belt) that have been
decimated by globalization. The case against criminalization is stronger. It
wastes police resources, has cost billions (if not trillions) of dollars,
destroyed communities already ravaged by things like AIDS and
deindustrialization and institutional racism, locked away tens of millions of
non-violent people in the byzantine world of the criminal justice system and
labeled many of them as felons, torn apart millions of families, and made it
more difficult for kids from the underprivileged and vulnerable communities
that have been the target of the War on Drugs to crawl out of entrenched
poverty.
For
those who want to think of the children when the subject of cannabis comes up,
please, quit the sanctimonious pearl clutching and think of them.
Concluding in Michigan
My
time in Michigan was brief, only a few days, and my last stop before the
airport was Birmingham Roast, a coffee shop just on the outskirts of downtown.
I was slated to meet two friends. It was a typical early Saturday afternoon in
late April: breezy and bright, though stubbornly cold for the season.
For
the entirety of our time in high school, we had referred to the town as “The
Bubble.” At the time, we understood that it was a kind of plastic fantastic
utopia that didn’t seem real. Had it been the 2010s rather than the late 1990s
and early 2000s, we probably would have understood this “bubble” concept as it
pertains to white fragility. Birmingham is about as diverse as a hockey team
and, in the words of Robin DiAngelo,
an “insulated environment of racial privilege.” It also perpetuates itself. The
probability of success for us was extremely high, and this is now reflected in
the status of many of my friends who plan to raise families in Birmingham (or a
place like it) for the same reasons their parents came to Birmingham in the
first place. The public schools are great, it is safe, and most of the streets
are lined with large leafy trees and well-manicured lawns.
Despite
all this, most of the people with whom I went to high school regularly used
drugs. A lot. A major reason was because of availability. It was easier to get
an eighth of weed during middle school or my freshman year of high school than
it was to get a six-pack of beer. Ecstasy, mushrooms, acid, and cocaine were a
little bit more difficult to procure, but, if you knew the right people, they
were readily available so long as you had money. And these kids had money.
Consequently, when I recently read the statistic that young white kids are more
likely to use drugs than any other demographic group, I was hardly surprised.
Because
drugs and alcohol were (and almost certainly continue to be) so common, many of
my friends were busted for possession or charged with a Minor in Possession due
to underage drinking (at the time it was referred to as getting MIPped). Though
a handful had to spend a few weeks in either county jail or some kind of
bootcamp, most faced no serious consequences for their actions because they
came from families with enough resources to hire private attorneys. Felonies
became misdemeanors, misdemeanors became slaps on the wrist. A lot of lives
were not ruined because of what were characterized as youthful transgressions.
These
same mistakes would have landed us in a mass
incarceration system from which it is extremely difficult to emerge and
virtually impossible to do so without seriously diminished prospects had we
grown up in a less privileged community. A lot of those people I see following
the footsteps of their parents and moving into suburban manors, making six figures,
and raising kids in stable homes would be in and out of jail, unable to land a
decent job, struggling to survive, and raising kids who would inherit the same
lack of opportunity they faced if they grew up just a few miles down Woodward
in Detroit. A lot of lives have been ruined because of what is typically
characterized as a need for law and order, even if it seems more appropriate to
label it, as Michelle Alexander has done, the new Jim Crow.
Because
the lives of the kids in my town were not ruined, many had the chance to leave
the area for college after graduating. I moved to New York City to attend NYU,
and then remained in the city where I worked in local politics before taking on
a less demanding day job that afforded me the opportunity to spend my nights
writing. Some of our other friends eventually made their way back after years
away and are now firmly a part of the professional class in Metro Detroit. They
are doctors, lawyers, financial consultants, and politicians. We’re waiting on
one such person: Rep. Haley Stevens (D).
Like
me, Haley also left Michigan following high school. She got her BA from
American University in DC, and then quickly began working in politics at the
national level. She took a job with Hilary Clinton’s 2008 campaign before
joining the Obama team following Clinton’s defeat in the primaries. She
continued working in government and once again joined Clinton’s staff for her
2016 presidential run. In November 2016, Haley found herself resting an arm on
the stage at the Javits Center on Manhattan’s West Side as Clinton gave her
concession speech—this time after losing to Donald Trump. Two years later,
Haley was one of the many women riding the blue wave into Congress as a member
of the moderate New Democratic Coalition. Not only does she now represent
Michigan’s 11th congressional district; she is also the chairwoman
of the Research & Technology Subcommittee of the House Science, Space &
Technology Committee.
Despite
her new position, she’s still Haley to us. We’ve established a level of
comradery that hasn’t managed to fray much despite our differences or the fact
that we only see one another a few times per year. It’s strange how this group
of friends doesn’t miss a beat or feel awkward about how much time has passed
since we were all floating through the doldrums following the last year of high
school and spending our nights debating politics and revolution and philosophy
in local parks or hanging out in the house of our friend who’s dad frequently
worked the graveyard shift at a Downriver Ford plant.
Throughout
this time, we often talked about forming a think tank—more as a joke initially,
but the idea had legs and it seems to have influenced most of our lives. There
was a certain imperative that each of us felt about the state of the
environment, the state of the economy, the state of the political divide (the
2000 election was still an open wound), and the state of our culture. We had a
responsibility to not simply let the status quo continue. While some of us were
more radical in our beliefs about the extent of the change that needed to take
place, each one of us felt a degree of urgency that I’ve rarely found in other
people our age who share our socioeconomic background. Most tend to think that
pontificating on social media or perfecting the art of posting a dank meme
counts as direct action. Others pride themselves on the fact that they vote
every two or four years.
Once
Haley arrived, we talked about the changes to the town; the fact that we’re all
getting old; new relationships, marriages, births, divorces, deaths. We made
tentative plans to play a game of Risk in her congressional office and asked
her how her reelection campaign is going even though she had only been sworn
into office a few months beforehand. She asked about work and I told her I was
in the process of writing a long article on Benzinga and cannabis.
Eventually,
politics came up. She wanted to know what I thought she should focus on. “What
is important to you?” she asked.
I
thought for a second. “We need to legalize weed … I mean, there’s just so much
potential there.”
The
synapses stalled out. She nodded.
Further Thoughts
It’s
foolish to assume that the complexity of legalization and the cannabis industry
can be summed up in a few sentences or even a more robust 15,000 words.
Legalization at the federal level will require the creation of a massive web of
infrastructure to oversee the cultivation, distribution, and taxation of
cannabis. It will require hiring more federal employees, expanding the power of
federal agencies such as the USDA and the FDA, drafting legislation that is
extremely verbose and tedious, and spending tax money—four things Republicans
are notoriously opposed to. Even removing cannabis from the list of scheduled
drugs (often referred to as “deschedulization,” and distinct from
“reschedulization,” which would mean demoting cannabis from a Schedule I drug
to another Schedule) will demand the rewriting of the law in a way that
facilitates research on cannabis and grants federal licenses to growers and
dispensaries. If done in a way that benefits pharmaceutical companies—which
would likely happen if it were reschedulized because these companies already
have decades of experience complying with regulations whereas companies that
deal exclusively with cannabis have none—the entire industry would be absorbed
by Big Pharma. If done in a way that discourages oligopoly and the influx of
shady money into the cannabis space, while also promoting the creation of new
businesses by members of communities who have historically been the target of
the War on Drugs, then legislation will need to be written that provides
incentives and access to loans for new entrepreneurs, especially those whose
companies would qualify as minority- and/or women-owned business enterprises
(MWBEs).
Unfortunately,
the probability that it would be deschedulized or legalized in a responsible
way by the current administration seems extremely low. On top of being
unwilling to support regulatory expansion and approaching every problem as
though it can be solved by a few orders barked by a senile executive and
translated into workable law by a legal staff of C- and D-list attorneys, the
current administration won’t support these policies because it won’t appeal to
“the base.” Even though the legalization of cannabis for strictly medicinal
purposes is supported by 93% of Americans according to a Quinnipiac
poll released in March of this year, such a policy would probably be
characterized as a victory for “the libs” in the press. A similar thing could
be said of requiring background checks for all gun buyers, something the same
poll found is supported by 93% of Americans (and 87% of gun owners). As petty
as this may be, pettiness will continue to be a weighty currency in Washington
for the foreseeable future.
Legalization
would also disturb the ecosystem of the prison-industrial complex. It would
mean fewer people going to jail (close to 600,000 of the
more than 10 million arrests in 2017 were for possession of marijuana). It
would also mean that many of the more than 2 million people currently
incarcerated would be stuck behind bars for doing something that is no longer
illegal. What would happen to them? Would they remain there to appease the
rural communities where these penitentiaries (and the jobs and Census numbers
they provide) are based, or would they be freed? Would those who had been
convicted of felony possession charges cease to be regarded as felons and
suddenly be eligible to vote and receive government assistance for things like
Pell grants and housing? Would those who have been evicted and banned from
federal housing projects for drug possession be allowed to return? Would they
still have to check the box?
I’m
not asking these questions to make it seem as though legalization and
deschedulization are insurmountable problems that we should ignore. Far from
it. I think it’s important to recognize that the act of dismantling prohibition
will require organization, years of strategy, and a team working behind the
scenes to understand how a federal program should be implemented. If it were to
just happen without adequate planning, it would probably be a tumultuous
affair. This is a critical point. Because any initial hiccups will inevitably
be used as ammunition to either torpedo the policy or defund regulation to the
point that its failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy—the modus operandi of those in favor of
smaller government—the rollout cannot be stymied by mistakes.
It
is absolutely vital that we get this right, which is perhaps why I hesitated when
Haley asked what I thought she should focus on. If there is one lesson that
I’ve learned from the Trump Era, it’s that creative destruction at the federal
level rarely achieves its stated goals and that the bull in a china shop
approach to policy that has guided the executive branch—from the days of the
Muslim ban to whatever massive snafu they’re manhandling as you read this—tends
to do more harm than good. Failure to act may not be an option, but this does
not excuse a failure to think.
As
we were walking to our respective cars, I said I wanted to ask Haley one last
thing about the article on cannabis I was writing.
“Yes,”
she said without turning around. “Of course, I’ll read it.”
Links:
_______________________________________
Jay Fox is the author of The Walls
and is a regular contributor to Stay Thirsty Magazine.