The More Things Change . . . Cannabis and Politics in 2014

Last year started with
breathy excitement from Colorado, with national network clips of eager
customers lining up in the snow to buy legal weed. The beginning of adult-use
sales in Colorado and Washington this year was followed by articles on reduced
crime, increased revenues, booming economies, innovative new cannabis products
and services, and thousands upon thousands of happy cannabis consumers. At the
federal level we saw gradual progress on banking reform for the legal cannabis
industry with guidance by the US Treasury Department’s FINCEN and a dramatic
one vote passage of the Farr-Rohrabacher amendment which called for the DEA
respecting state cannabis laws.

Back here in California,
cannabis policy reform organizations and a varied set of Sacramento
stakeholders worked with ex-Assembly member Tom Ammiano on AB-1894 which would
have brought a reasonable set of regulations to our cannabis industry. The
continuing opposition from the California Police Chiefs Association and the
League of California Cities, the timidity of many Assembly members to pass
anything cannabis-related in an election year, and the parallel competition
from Senator Lou Correa’s law enforcement-backed SB-1262 prevented Ammiano from
closing out this item on his legislative bucket list. As the summer and the
legislative session wore on, disappointed stakeholders worked with SB-1262’s
author but the bill sponsors were only willing to negotiate only so far. Good
compromises on provisional state licenses, few restrictions on medical
recommendations, few restrictions on multiple license ownerships, and a very
workable skeleton regulatory framework were agreed upon by all parties, but
local jurisdictions still retained the power to prevent safe access to medicine
and there were few features that would have brought cannabis cultivators into
the light.

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In 2014, we also saw
adult use legal cannabis passed by voters in Alaska, Oregon, and DC. Measure 91
in Oregon was a huge 56 percent win with few restrictions on industry,
reasonable tax levels, and limits on localities ability to opt-out of adult use
sales. That last feature is important to look at in the context of the poor
performance of local ballot measures here in California. The few voters that
came out to vote supported higher taxes on medical cannabis but largely
rejected its cultivation or sales. There was one exception with the passage in
Santa Ana with a relatively restrictive dispensary city-backed ordinance. This
should hopefully start a trend of allowing licensed medical cannabis
dispensaries in Orange County and our vast California suburbs. But both here in
California (as well as in Colorado, incidentally) the few campaign committees
which hired professional political campaign consultants were the ones that were
able to beat out the remnants of reefer madness and law enforcement opposition,
as well as convince supportive voters to turn out. Looking towards the year
ahead, the cannabis industry and movement should continue to organize itself
statewide throughout 2015, working optimistically towards passing reasonable
medical regulations and getting everything dialed-in for our big push ahead to
legalize here in California in November 2016. We should ask ourselves—are we
ready? Will it pass? To the last question, I really don’t know. But the best
way to predict the future is to create it.