From the interim impact on the cannabis industry to a media beatdown, those of us opposing Question 8 have a battle in store and little time to fight
It isn’t all bad news. I actually answered a few calls this past week from cannabis industry stakeholders who finally genuinely fear the effort to repeal marijuana in Mass.
Of course, they’re only finally coming around because things are getting scary. Many have either a gut feeling or anecdotal reason to believe that their investment, career, passion, or all of the above is at greater risk than previously thought.
These past few weeks, since crashing through the three-month mark on the way to Election Day Nov. 3, I have felt similarly pessimistic. When I say that it’s not going well, I’m referring to four overarching observations:
- A continued ignorance about the mere existence of the ballot measure …
- An apparent lack of aggressive activity by the formal opposition campaign …
- The impact of this mess on the cannabis industry and its future …
- Plus the media momentum pushing the Yes On 8 cause.
Ignorance about the ballot measure to close recreational dispensaries
While it isn’t worth re-hashing the multiple legal challenges mounted against the repeal campaign, it’s nonetheless important to remember the confusing proposed language cannabis proponents crowed about. While the wording in the voter guide sent out ahead of the election will hopefully be more direct, the so-called Coalition for a Healthy Massachusetts wrote a curiously vague Petition for a Law Relative to Regulating Marijuana, which if passed would be implemented as the gag-worthy Act to Restore a Sensible Marijuana Policy.
Considering that election workers don’t coach voters like pollsters might do in conducting a survey, let’s look at the prevailing polling. There’s only been one published to date—by Bay State Poll, a States of Opinion Project, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. Those numbers came out six months ago, and for that distance from the present alone should largely be ignored. Nevertheless, they asked: “Generally speaking, would you support or oppose the following proposed ballot question … or do you not have an opinion? Repeal laws that permit the sale of recreational marijuana and the personal cultivation of cannabis in homes.”
As has been widely quoted, only 20% of the 670 respondents to that February voter survey said they strongly or somewhat support Question 8, meaning they want to see adult-use dispensaries close. But that other 80% is dangerously parsed between neutral/no opinion (9%), somewhat oppose (15%), strongly oppose (48%), and don’t know/not sure (7%). Add up everyone who isn’t dead set against the measure, and it’s neck and neck. Folks can rejoice in the positives of this old questionnaire at their peril. I’m focused on the problematic aspects, which brings me to my next point.
Where is the No On 8 campaign?
In the morning I am wrapping up this essay, MassCann is organizing an event where people march the Freedom Trail in support of continuing adult-use cannabis in Massachusetts. The legacy advocacy organization also published a resource and information hub for those opposing the measure months ago, and is going to use its massive annual Freedom Rally for the cause as well.
At the same time, dispensaries across the state are pitching in. In Western Mass, Canna Provisions is raising money and spreading awareness through flyers. Up north, CNA Stores is posting No On 8 videos and teaching people at the counter too. Jason Reposa of Good Vibes is plugging away on various platforms, including with a new tool and dedicated website to track legislators on this issue.
But what exactly is the formal opposition, the Committee to Protect Cannabis Regulation, doing to prevent disaster? I haven’t heard from the campaign in weeks and barely sense its presence in real life or online, and I’m not alone. Reporters, activists, and outside observers alike are asking: Where the hell are these people? I mean this as a nudge rather than as a condemnation, but I will quote a new column from Dr. Keith Saunders on this matter. The longtime activist sat in on one of the oppo committee’s organizing meetings, and confirmed my biggest fear—that the No On 8 camp is embarrassed to be seen in the company of the people it is supposed to protect.
“Campaign consultants are most concerned with offending Undecided voters, believing a fraction of a percentage might determine any election,” Saunders writes. “That is why the Gang of Five running the Massachusetts No on 8 Campaign asked MassCann to avoid public marijuana smoking at their events before Election Day. … The consultants were concerned that ‘the media’ will be showing clips of people smoking pot in public at MassCann events, and this will drive Undecided voters (if there are any) to kill jobs and businesses and starve the state of more than $250 million a year. Because they don’t like the smell.”
An immeasurable impact on business
There have been some major if overdue boosts for marijuana companies in Mass this year. At the top of the list might be an increase to the amount of product one can purchase at a recreational dispensary—from one ounce to two ounces—followed by more areas where people can receive deliveries at home, as well as some other minor but notable rule changes. But for the most part, as you already know, times are tough for most, and this repeal push isn’t helping.
My evidence is purely anecdotal, but it feels worth mentioning that stakeholders from businesses of all sizes have mentioned that private lenders are getting skittish because of the threat. Perhaps that is what’s driving some cannabis companies to finally take the matter seriously, along with their social consumption dreams being put on ice due to Question 8. Indeed, the situation has potentially pumped the brakes on that program, with some municipalities engaging in discussions but unwilling to proceed with costly municipal preparation until they’re sure that legal pot is here to stay.
All of which amounts to yet another reason to stand up with stoner pride, or however you care to present your faith in cannabis, louder than ever through November. Investors may be weary—they already were before the prohibitionists came along with a ballot question—but the bigger risk is for the greater public to give up on legal weed as well. If you are in the industry or anywhere near or adjacent to it, the time is now to show you care enough to invest your own energy into the cause.
Media against the weed world
Finally, there is the battle of headlines, which by any measure No On 8 is losing at the moment. You can argue that the prohibitionists are getting crushed on all the social platforms, but crusty dusty media still matters, like it or not. And in those spaces, it’s been a bloodbath.
We have documented many of these attacks in their various forms—from press releases full of untruths that nonetheless populate in countless places, to direct conservative hits, to measured editorials which may not even mention the initiative but cast doubt on the larger industry and culture at an inconvenient time.
And why is that the trend? It’s because while five o’clock news hairdos and newspaper editors don’t care one way or another about Question 8, they are still unimaginative copycats who like a winner. Until they see some dollars or action from the opposition corner, I doubt that their proclivities to echo reefer-mad insanity will subside prior to November.
