Building a Culture of Peace
Flip the Switch
Flip the Switch
A Medical Marijuana Strategy
by Steve De’Angelo, Founder, Harborside Health Center, Oakland, California
This article is about a strategy that I have developed in the course of conversations with several other activists,that we refer to as “Flip The Switch”.
The essence of the strategy is a call for our movement to promote positive models of cannabis distribution, and use those models to gradually build public support for extending the right of safe and affordable access to all adult Americans.
Flip The Switch seeks to chart a middle course, avoiding the twin traps of compromising too easily on the one hand, or precipitously advocating measures without sufficient support, on the other hand.
An examination of reputable public opinion polls consistently demonstrates that 70% of Americans support medical cannabis. An equal percentage of Americans say that non-medical marijuana should be decriminalized. However, when the legalization question is asked, that level of support drops down into the 40 percentiles.
What do these figures mean? They mean that something on the order of 25-30% of Americans approve of the legalization of medical cannabis or decriminalization of non-medical cannabis, but are unwilling to extend that support to the full legalization of cannabis for all purposes.
What is the source of these reservations? Why do so many Americans feel comfortable with people possessing cannabis but not obtaining it, unless they are sick?
Since starting HHC three years ago, I have had many opportunities to discuss cannabis with neighbors, bureaucrats, elected officials, reporters, and cops. Based on those conversations, it is my belief that their discomfort springs from the lack of any positive image of what legal cannabis distribution would look like. Any idea they can conjure up in their mind is frightening to them.
Some--- more than you would expect—believe that legal cannabis means that the Mexican cartels would be free to operate at will-- thugs with guns slinging weed, setting up shop on the corners of their suburban neighborhoods. Others, more sophisticated, worry that when their kids go to the 7-11, they will not
only have to walk past the booze and the tobacco, but also past the weed. Or that when their kids open the latest issue of Vibe or Rolling Stone they will be confronted with a two page full glossy ad for reefer in the style of Anheuser-Busch. These citizens do not want to see cannabis companies in the model of RJ Reynolds, spending 20 times as much on advertising—on creating a market-- as they spend on producing the product.
These millions of Americans are the swing voters we need to persuade if our movement is to be victorious. They are already comfortable enough with cannabis to support its medical use or its decriminalization. In other words, they are half way there. They recognize that using cannabis should not be a crime, and that it can be a good thing if properly handled, but are afraid it can hurt them or their children if it is not properly handled.
These reservations were very well described in an article in the most recent edition of Fortune Magazine entitled “Is Pot Already Legal?”
Here are the most relevant passages:
“Marijuana activists thought they were close to legalization once before. From 1973 to 1978 activists won decriminalization in 11 states. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter endorsed a federal decriminalization bill. But the bill went nowhere, and soon the movement was all but obliterated by the return swing of the cultural pendulum, now known as the Reagan Revolution. There would be no new state or federal marijuana reforms for the next 16 years…Medical marijuana is clearly the crowning factor making things different this time. Not only is it changing perceptions of the drug, but it has also given legalization advocates in California a first-ever opportunity to devise and showcase a business prototype. They’ve been afforded the chance to show a skeptical public that a safe, seemly, and responsible system for distributing marijuana is possible. If they succeed, they’ll convince the fence sitters and lead the way to a nationwide metamorphosis. If they fail, the backlash will be savage. If communities cannot adequately regulate the dispensaries, they’ll descend into unsightly, youth-seducing, crime-ridden playgrounds for gang-bangers, and this flirtation with legalization will conclude the way the last one did: with a swift and merciless swing of the pendulum.”
(As one of those with his head on the chopping block, I am very concerned about that pendulum.)
The Fortune analysis is spot on, and is backed up by multiple public opinion polls. It is clear that the most critical task for our movement today is to develop and promote positive models of cannabis distribution. We must demonstrate to our fellow citizens that we are worthy of the trust we are asking them to place in us.
I am happy to report that today in California that process has already begun. Four years ago, Oakland became the first jurisdiction in California to license and regulate medical cannabis dispensaries. Those regulations are such a huge success, they have been emulated by other cities and counties. As regulation has spread to other jurisdictions throughout the state, the amateurism and shady dealing that characterized the early days of the industry has been replaced with a growing number of reputable, legitimate, and competent medical cannabis dispensaries.
How as a movement can we facilitate and expedite the creation of positive models of cannabis distribution?
First and foremost, we must demand the effective licensing and regulation of dispensaries. Most of the damage done in the early days of the California industry was due to the early reluctance of jurisdictions to explicitly license dispensaries. This consigned dispensary operations to a legal gray area, with the predictable result that people who feel comfortable in the shadows were attracted to the business. Today, 50% of California jurisdictions still prohibit dispensary operations, and many others unnecessarily restrict their operations. We must go into each and every one of these jurisdictions, and do the sustained political footwork that will be needed to move them to effective licensing and regulation.
Second, we must embrace the not-for-profit, community service model of cannabis distribution. When you boil down the fear of our 25% of swing voters, I would submit that it likely comes down to them not wanting us as a society to make the same mistakes with cannabis that we made with alcohol and tobacco: glamorization, excessive advertising driving inappropriate use, profit making corporations enticing their children into lifetimes of dependency.
Third, we must avoid the temptation to overplay our hand by moving the debate directly to full legalization. Let’s not lose the support we have from our swing voters, by trying to move them too far too fast, out of their comfort zone.
We have learned over and over again that you have to expect to lose support in the course of a heated electoral campaign. We will certainly not win if we are polling at the 47%, and probably won’t win even if we are polling at 56%.
And legalization initiatives at this time are not only likely to fail, they may do damage even if they win. If legalization initiatives lack effective distribution regulations, they will likely manifest the worst fears of these key swing voters.
A legal but unregulated cannabis market would turn into a free-for-all, leading to much of the same PR problems encountered after Prop 215. The image of this mess might well force the pendulum of public opinion to swing back. As the Fortune article rightly predicted: “The backlash will be savage.”
Fourth, as we advance medical cannabis legislation and voter initiatives in the rest of the states, we must ensure that they contain provisions that will enable the creation of an effective distribution system. All too often, our movement has traded easy victory for laws that fail to adequately protect us. All too often, we have accepted medical cannabis laws that severely restrict the ability of doctors to write recommendations, which is the first step in creating a market large enough to sustain dispensaries. All too often, we have accepted severe restrictions on the quantity of medicine patients may cultivate, or on their right to collective gardens—which are the first steps in creating a sufficient supply of medicine—another pre-requisite of an effective marketplace. And all too often, we have accepted bans or restrictions on the right of patients to trade and distribute medicine amongst themselves, with obvious implications for developing a positive image of cannabis distribution.
These self-defeating half steps must end. If we accept these kinds of restrictions, we will never be able to place positive images of cannabis distribution in front of our fellow citizens. We will blow this historic opportunity to win them over.
Instead, we must push for the most inclusive possible definitions of which conditions doctors may recommend for, which would do nothing more than treat cannabis like any other medicine, which doctors are entrusted to recommend for any ailment it can treat. We must ensure that patients are allowed to grow quantities of medicine sufficient to sustain distribution, and that they are allowed to take advantage of efficiencies of scale by forming collective gardens. We must make certain that the laws we pass will provide patients with safe and affordable access to medicine, which means a well-regulated dispensary system.
But what about legalization? What about the millions of cannabis consumers who do not have medical recommendations? Most importantly, what about everyone who is sitting in prison? If we focus so strongly on medical cannabis, will we leave these millions out in the cold?
Well, let me say now that it is my unshakeable belief all human beings have a sacred birthright of free access to cannabis, and that our work will not be done until we have permanently enshrined that right into law. But I have been in this movement almost four decades, and for most of that time, we made little to no progress—until we began to fight for the right to use cannabis medically.
We will not legalize cannabis by simply repeating the same arguments for legalization that have led nowhere for the past four decades. We still need to win over millions of Americans, and we must develop new strategies to do so. We cannot expect different results if we just repeat the same strategy.
So how do we extend our current successes with medical cannabis to all cannabis consumers? How do we extend legal protection from the hundreds of thousands who now have it, to the millions and millions who still need it, who are still suffering under the yoke, still going to prison, and still dying?
Assume that our movement hears and heeds the call I am making today, and focuses its nationwide efforts on the licensing and regulation of medical cannabis. Fast forward your imagination five or six years.
Robust medical cannabis laws have allowed tens of millions of Americans to become legal cannabis consumers. Almost everybody has a friend or a relative with a recommendation, and knows that it has done them no harm, and indeed probably a whole lot of good. Fears and reservations about the distribution of cannabis have been allayed, and replaced with acceptance. Scientific research has solidly established both the safety and the medical efficacy of cannabis for a wide range of ailments, including everyday ailments.
Across the nation, there are thousands of not-for-profit, community service dispensaries that have created a positive model of cannabis distribution. There’s no reefer in the 7-11; kids aren’t being subject to the machinations of a created market, and communities are benefiting from tax revenue, charitable donations, and community services. In short, a safe, seemly, and reliable distribution system will already be in existence.
At this point, we reinvigorate the call for a science based cannabis policy. What does science tell us about cannabis? It tells us that most of over-the-counter drugs sold in pharmacies with no recommendations are more dangerous than cannabis. It tells us that cannabis is the safest therapeutically active substance known to mankind. It tells us that cannabis should not be subject to any restrictions greater than over the counter drugs sold in pharmacies every day.
This is of course in essence the same fact based argument we have made for years with no success, but conditions will have changed. With a well regulated network of legitimate dispensaries already in existence; when the fears of our fellow citizens have been answered; when the hundreds of thousands have grown to tens of millions, and cannabis consumption has become part of the mainstream fabric of life, our fellow citizens will finally be open to the call for a scientific and rational cannabis policy that they have resisted for decades.
It is then, after we have earned their trust, that we will ask them to Flip The Switch to a science based cannabis policy. Instead of requiring medical recommendations and identification cards for a substance that is safer than most over the counter drugs, let’s allow adult Americans to make their own well-informed decisions. Let’s not continue to force millions of our fellow citizens to spend hundreds of dollars on unnecessary medical appointments, and carry special ID cards; let’s not waste valuable medical resources on something that does not require them; let’s not continue with an emotion-based system. Let’s move to a science based cannabis policy.
Once this principle is accepted and enacted into law, we will have achieved the goal we have struggled for with so much passion, for so many years. Adult Americans will have the right to freely grow, possess, and purchase cannabis.
A non-corporate system of cannabis distribution will have been created; a system that keeps the revenue generated by cannabis within our communities; a system which avoids the mistakes our culture has made with alcohol and tobacco, and promotes the value of compassion and community service, rather than corporate greed and profits.
At dispensaries all across the country, we will stop asking for medical cannabis identification, and simply ask for adult identification. We will Flip The Switch at the dispensary door, and all adult Americans will have what hundreds of Californians have: legal, safe, and affordable access to cannabis.
Steve D’Angelo is the founder of Harborside Health Center in Oakland California and a leading spokesperson for the medical marijuana movement. http://www.harborsidehealthcenter.com/
A Medical Marijuana Strategy
by Steve De’Angelo, Founder, Harborside Health Center, Oakland, California
This article is about a strategy that I have developed in the course of conversations with several other activists,that we refer to as “Flip The Switch”.
The essence of the strategy is a call for our movement to promote positive models of cannabis distribution, and use those models to gradually build public support for extending the right of safe and affordable access to all adult Americans.
Flip The Switch seeks to chart a middle course, avoiding the twin traps of compromising too easily on the one hand, or precipitously advocating measures without sufficient support, on the other hand.
An examination of reputable public opinion polls consistently demonstrates that 70% of Americans support medical cannabis. An equal percentage of Americans say that non-medical marijuana should be decriminalized. However, when the legalization question is asked, that level of support drops down into the 40 percentiles.
What do these figures mean? They mean that something on the order of 25-30% of Americans approve of the legalization of medical cannabis or decriminalization of non-medical cannabis, but are unwilling to extend that support to the full legalization of cannabis for all purposes.
What is the source of these reservations? Why do so many Americans feel comfortable with people possessing cannabis but not obtaining it, unless they are sick?
Since starting HHC three years ago, I have had many opportunities to discuss cannabis with neighbors, bureaucrats, elected officials, reporters, and cops. Based on those conversations, it is my belief that their discomfort springs from the lack of any positive image of what legal cannabis distribution would look like. Any idea they can conjure up in their mind is frightening to them.Some--- more than you would expect—believe that legal cannabis means that the Mexican cartels would be free to operate at will-- thugs with guns slinging weed, setting up shop on the corners of their suburban neighborhoods. Others, more sophisticated, worry that when their kids go to the 7-11, they will not
only have to walk past the booze and the tobacco, but also past the weed. Or that when their kids open the latest issue of Vibe or Rolling Stone they will be confronted with a two page full glossy ad for reefer in the style of Anheuser-Busch. These citizens do not want to see cannabis companies in the model of RJ Reynolds, spending 20 times as much on advertising—on creating a market-- as they spend on producing the product.
These millions of Americans are the swing voters we need to persuade if our movement is to be victorious. They are already comfortable enough with cannabis to support its medical use or its decriminalization. In other words, they are half way there. They recognize that using cannabis should not be a crime, and that it can be a good thing if properly handled, but are afraid it can hurt them or their children if it is not properly handled.
These reservations were very well described in an article in the most recent edition of Fortune Magazine entitled “Is Pot Already Legal?”
Here are the most relevant passages:
“Marijuana activists thought they were close to legalization once before. From 1973 to 1978 activists won decriminalization in 11 states. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter endorsed a federal decriminalization bill. But the bill went nowhere, and soon the movement was all but obliterated by the return swing of the cultural pendulum, now known as the Reagan Revolution. There would be no new state or federal marijuana reforms for the next 16 years…Medical marijuana is clearly the crowning factor making things different this time. Not only is it changing perceptions of the drug, but it has also given legalization advocates in California a first-ever opportunity to devise and showcase a business prototype. They’ve been afforded the chance to show a skeptical public that a safe, seemly, and responsible system for distributing marijuana is possible. If they succeed, they’ll convince the fence sitters and lead the way to a nationwide metamorphosis. If they fail, the backlash will be savage. If communities cannot adequately regulate the dispensaries, they’ll descend into unsightly, youth-seducing, crime-ridden playgrounds for gang-bangers, and this flirtation with legalization will conclude the way the last one did: with a swift and merciless swing of the pendulum.”
(As one of those with his head on the chopping block, I am very concerned about that pendulum.)
The Fortune analysis is spot on, and is backed up by multiple public opinion polls. It is clear that the most critical task for our movement today is to develop and promote positive models of cannabis distribution. We must demonstrate to our fellow citizens that we are worthy of the trust we are asking them to place in us.
I am happy to report that today in California that process has already begun. Four years ago, Oakland became the first jurisdiction in California to license and regulate medical cannabis dispensaries. Those regulations are such a huge success, they have been emulated by other cities and counties. As regulation has spread to other jurisdictions throughout the state, the amateurism and shady dealing that characterized the early days of the industry has been replaced with a growing number of reputable, legitimate, and competent medical cannabis dispensaries.
How as a movement can we facilitate and expedite the creation of positive models of cannabis distribution?
First and foremost, we must demand the effective licensing and regulation of dispensaries. Most of the damage done in the early days of the California industry was due to the early reluctance of jurisdictions to explicitly license dispensaries. This consigned dispensary operations to a legal gray area, with the predictable result that people who feel comfortable in the shadows were attracted to the business. Today, 50% of California jurisdictions still prohibit dispensary operations, and many others unnecessarily restrict their operations. We must go into each and every one of these jurisdictions, and do the sustained political footwork that will be needed to move them to effective licensing and regulation.
Second, we must embrace the not-for-profit, community service model of cannabis distribution. When you boil down the fear of our 25% of swing voters, I would submit that it likely comes down to them not wanting us as a society to make the same mistakes with cannabis that we made with alcohol and tobacco: glamorization, excessive advertising driving inappropriate use, profit making corporations enticing their children into lifetimes of dependency.
Third, we must avoid the temptation to overplay our hand by moving the debate directly to full legalization. Let’s not lose the support we have from our swing voters, by trying to move them too far too fast, out of their comfort zone.
We have learned over and over again that you have to expect to lose support in the course of a heated electoral campaign. We will certainly not win if we are polling at the 47%, and probably won’t win even if we are polling at 56%.
And legalization initiatives at this time are not only likely to fail, they may do damage even if they win. If legalization initiatives lack effective distribution regulations, they will likely manifest the worst fears of these key swing voters.
A legal but unregulated cannabis market would turn into a free-for-all, leading to much of the same PR problems encountered after Prop 215. The image of this mess might well force the pendulum of public opinion to swing back. As the Fortune article rightly predicted: “The backlash will be savage.”
Fourth, as we advance medical cannabis legislation and voter initiatives in the rest of the states, we must ensure that they contain provisions that will enable the creation of an effective distribution system. All too often, our movement has traded easy victory for laws that fail to adequately protect us. All too often, we have accepted medical cannabis laws that severely restrict the ability of doctors to write recommendations, which is the first step in creating a market large enough to sustain dispensaries. All too often, we have accepted severe restrictions on the quantity of medicine patients may cultivate, or on their right to collective gardens—which are the first steps in creating a sufficient supply of medicine—another pre-requisite of an effective marketplace. And all too often, we have accepted bans or restrictions on the right of patients to trade and distribute medicine amongst themselves, with obvious implications for developing a positive image of cannabis distribution.
These self-defeating half steps must end. If we accept these kinds of restrictions, we will never be able to place positive images of cannabis distribution in front of our fellow citizens. We will blow this historic opportunity to win them over.
Instead, we must push for the most inclusive possible definitions of which conditions doctors may recommend for, which would do nothing more than treat cannabis like any other medicine, which doctors are entrusted to recommend for any ailment it can treat. We must ensure that patients are allowed to grow quantities of medicine sufficient to sustain distribution, and that they are allowed to take advantage of efficiencies of scale by forming collective gardens. We must make certain that the laws we pass will provide patients with safe and affordable access to medicine, which means a well-regulated dispensary system.
But what about legalization? What about the millions of cannabis consumers who do not have medical recommendations? Most importantly, what about everyone who is sitting in prison? If we focus so strongly on medical cannabis, will we leave these millions out in the cold?
Well, let me say now that it is my unshakeable belief all human beings have a sacred birthright of free access to cannabis, and that our work will not be done until we have permanently enshrined that right into law. But I have been in this movement almost four decades, and for most of that time, we made little to no progress—until we began to fight for the right to use cannabis medically.
We will not legalize cannabis by simply repeating the same arguments for legalization that have led nowhere for the past four decades. We still need to win over millions of Americans, and we must develop new strategies to do so. We cannot expect different results if we just repeat the same strategy.
So how do we extend our current successes with medical cannabis to all cannabis consumers? How do we extend legal protection from the hundreds of thousands who now have it, to the millions and millions who still need it, who are still suffering under the yoke, still going to prison, and still dying?
Assume that our movement hears and heeds the call I am making today, and focuses its nationwide efforts on the licensing and regulation of medical cannabis. Fast forward your imagination five or six years.
Robust medical cannabis laws have allowed tens of millions of Americans to become legal cannabis consumers. Almost everybody has a friend or a relative with a recommendation, and knows that it has done them no harm, and indeed probably a whole lot of good. Fears and reservations about the distribution of cannabis have been allayed, and replaced with acceptance. Scientific research has solidly established both the safety and the medical efficacy of cannabis for a wide range of ailments, including everyday ailments.
Across the nation, there are thousands of not-for-profit, community service dispensaries that have created a positive model of cannabis distribution. There’s no reefer in the 7-11; kids aren’t being subject to the machinations of a created market, and communities are benefiting from tax revenue, charitable donations, and community services. In short, a safe, seemly, and reliable distribution system will already be in existence.
At this point, we reinvigorate the call for a science based cannabis policy. What does science tell us about cannabis? It tells us that most of over-the-counter drugs sold in pharmacies with no recommendations are more dangerous than cannabis. It tells us that cannabis is the safest therapeutically active substance known to mankind. It tells us that cannabis should not be subject to any restrictions greater than over the counter drugs sold in pharmacies every day.
This is of course in essence the same fact based argument we have made for years with no success, but conditions will have changed. With a well regulated network of legitimate dispensaries already in existence; when the fears of our fellow citizens have been answered; when the hundreds of thousands have grown to tens of millions, and cannabis consumption has become part of the mainstream fabric of life, our fellow citizens will finally be open to the call for a scientific and rational cannabis policy that they have resisted for decades.
It is then, after we have earned their trust, that we will ask them to Flip The Switch to a science based cannabis policy. Instead of requiring medical recommendations and identification cards for a substance that is safer than most over the counter drugs, let’s allow adult Americans to make their own well-informed decisions. Let’s not continue to force millions of our fellow citizens to spend hundreds of dollars on unnecessary medical appointments, and carry special ID cards; let’s not waste valuable medical resources on something that does not require them; let’s not continue with an emotion-based system. Let’s move to a science based cannabis policy.
Once this principle is accepted and enacted into law, we will have achieved the goal we have struggled for with so much passion, for so many years. Adult Americans will have the right to freely grow, possess, and purchase cannabis.
A non-corporate system of cannabis distribution will have been created; a system that keeps the revenue generated by cannabis within our communities; a system which avoids the mistakes our culture has made with alcohol and tobacco, and promotes the value of compassion and community service, rather than corporate greed and profits.
At dispensaries all across the country, we will stop asking for medical cannabis identification, and simply ask for adult identification. We will Flip The Switch at the dispensary door, and all adult Americans will have what hundreds of Californians have: legal, safe, and affordable access to cannabis.
Steve D’Angelo is the founder of Harborside Health Center in Oakland California and a leading spokesperson for the medical marijuana movement. http://www.harborsidehealthcenter.com/
Last updated by Earthdance Global Jul 7, 2010.
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