The Prohibition Party, founded in 1869 on the single issue of alcohol prohibition, is the oldest still-active third party in the United States (sorry Whig party, no one is interested in powdered wigs anymore). While single-issue parties can be very effective, as evidenced by the passage of the 18th Amendment and the advent of alcohol prohibition, by forcing voters to focus on only one issue, those voters ignore the entirety of the candidates they are voting for.<\/p>\n
The cannabis industry has recently fallen victim to some of the same pitfalls of the\u00a0Prohibition Party,<\/a>\u00a0in particular, focusing on a core issue while ignoring others.<\/p>\n In June, Cannabis Wire\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that \u201ccannabis industry leaders have contributed a total of $69,000\u201d to the hardline conservative political action committee (PAC) What a Country! (WACPAC). WACPAC was formed by Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Tallahassee FL), with the\u00a0mission<\/a>\u00a0of supporting \u201ccandidates for U.S. Congress who are committed to reforming America\u2019s immigration laws.\u201d Representative Curbelo went so far as to call support for DACA a \u201clitmus test\u201d for candidates to receive donations. While that may sound good, Cannabis Wire reports that in reality, \u201cmost candidates who have received support from WACPAC have staunch anti-immigration views.\u201d<\/p>\n An interesting finding from Cannabis Wire\u2019s investigation was that 75 percent of donors to WACPAC were either cannabis investors or cannabis business owners. The top donors were \u201cexecutives from major cannabis companies such as MedMen Enterprises, Columbia Care, LivWell, and PalliaTech Inc.\u201d MedMen\u2019s CEO Adam Bierman and MedMen\u2019s political lobbying fund both donated $5,000 to WACPAC, making them one of the largest cannabis donors to the PAC. Bierman also gave $5,400 directly to Representative Curbelo\u2019s re-election.<\/p>\n After the Cannabis Wire piece ran, they were\u00a0contacted by Daniel Yi<\/a>, MedMen\u2019s Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. Yi informed them that when MedMen learned that \u201csome of the candidates the PAC has supported in the past had positions on immigration that do not align with MedMen\u2019s values,\u201d they \u201cimmediately requested a refund of our contribution.\u201d Yi also made it clear that their support of Representative Curbelo was because of his support for cannabis legalization, and not because of his views on immigration. It is not clear if they were successful in getting their money back, but it is clear that damage to their brand has already been done by the rush to support a\u00a0pro-cannabis candidate<\/a>\u00a0without fully vetting their policies and PAC.<\/p>\n Thirty-year career politician California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Newport Beach) is perhaps the best-known cannabis advocate in Congress, who\u2019s namesake amendment, the\u00a0Rohrabacher-Blumenauer Amendment,<\/a>\u00a0has been protecting state legal medical cannabis businesses since 2014. Representative Rohrabacher has advocated for a reform to our cannabis laws\u00a0for even longer<\/a>, both in Congress and as a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. Representative Rohrabacher is so close to the cannabis industry that he has even admitted to violating federal law by\u00a0using medical cannabis while in office<\/a>.<\/p>\n As is only fitting his long commitment to cannabis reform, Rohrabacher may be receiving more money from the industry than any other politician,\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0\u201cmore than $200,000 in contributions from individuals,\u201d which is nearly \u201cone-fifth of his total donations.\u201d In addition to those individual contributions, Representative Rohrabacher has\u00a0received<\/a>\u00a0$10,800 from\u00a0Dominion Capital<\/a>, an investment fund that is\u00a0heavily invested<\/a>\u00a0in the publicly traded cannabis company Terra Tech. Despite his nearly quarter of a million dollars from cannabis companies, Representative Rohrabacher is still hoping for more cannabis donations, and in May he\u00a0spoke<\/a>\u00a0at a meeting of the Association of Cannabis Professionals courting donors.<\/p>\n A caveat emptor to cannabis businesses, while Representative Rohrabacher may have a stellar record on cannabis issues, his political record on other issues has been a mixed bag, with some good buds and some schwag. For an example, look at Russia.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that, in the 1980s, Rohrabacher \u201cbriefly took up arms with Afghan freedom fighters battling Soviet occupiers. Later he became a dogged defender of Russia, which put him on the fringe of the Republican Party.\u201d Representative Rohrabacher\u2019s support for Russia was even the subject of\u00a0a joke<\/a>\u00a0made by Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. According to a recording obtained by The Washington Post, Representative McCarthy jested, \u201cThere\u2019s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.\u201d Representative Rohrabacher has even been implicated in the Mueller investigation when it was\u00a0revealed<\/a>\u00a0that former Trump campaign aide, Rick Gates, lied about Representative Rohrabacher\u2019s presence at a 2013 meeting with his longtime friend, Paul Manafort. Manafort has since been found guilty of\u00a0eight counts of financial crimes<\/a>, but not before\u00a0giving<\/a>\u00a0Rohrabacher \u201ca very modest campaign contribution.\u201d<\/p>\n Other than being uncomfortably close to the Trump-Russia probe, Representative Rohrabacher has made headlines this year for saying that it is\u00a0OK to discriminate<\/a>\u00a0against LGBT individuals who are buying homes. When it comes to abortion, the pro-choice group\u00a0NARAL<\/a>\u00a0gives him a score of 21 percent for 2017, which is actually better than the 0 percent rating they gave him for 2016. In 2015, Representative Rohrabacher went so far as\u00a0to call<\/a>\u00a0Planned Parenthood\u2019s work \u201can unbelievable holocaust.\u201d On that note, Rohrabacher is also affiliated with the\u00a0alt-right blogger and Holocaust denier<\/a>\u00a0Charles Johnson, who gave the Congressman a\u00a0$5,400 campaign contribution<\/a>. The voter education website VoteSmart\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0that Rohrabacher received ratings below 20 percent from the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the environmental group the League of Conservation Voters. It isn\u2019t all bad news, as he has consistently received 90 percent+ scores from the National Rifle Association for\u00a0almost two decades<\/a>.<\/p>\n Notable cannabis investor and attorney, Paul Rosen, a co-founder of\u00a0the Cronos Group<\/a>\u00a0and current CEO of\u00a0Tidal Royalty Corporation<\/a>, had some sage advice for cannabis businesses. \u201cIf you are going to make a political donation,\u201d said Rosen, \u201cknow their whole record so you don\u2019t have to issue an apology.\u201d He also had some tips for voters, \u201cEveryone has issues, as a pioneer in cannabis I am pro-cannabis reform, but for me, a pro-cannabis position is not a reason enough to vote for a politician. If I found out that a politician had views anathema to my views I wouldn\u2019t care if they wanted to legalize cannabis globally.<\/p>\n Rohrabacher and Curbelo are just two of the most high profile examples where cannabis businesses let single issue voting blind them from the bigger picture. Now, as cannabis lobbying money is surging into the\u00a0coffers of local<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0state politicians<\/a>\u00a0around the country, the trap of single-issue voting is one the cannabis industry and its consumers need to be aware of.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0is a politician\u2019s stance on cannabis your main priority when voting?<\/p>\n The post Is The Cannabis Industry the New Prohibition Party?<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Prohibition Party, founded in 1869 on the single issue of alcohol prohibition, is the oldest still-active third party in the United States (sorry Whig party, no one is interested in powdered wigs anymore). While single-issue parties can be very effective, as evidenced by the passage of the 18th AmendmentContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6381,50,216,2158,960,1349,119,901,415,6382,6383,896,6384],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30377"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30378,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30377\/revisions\/30378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Carlos Curbelo \u2013 The Importance of Vetting Before Donating<\/h4>\n
Dana Rohrabacher \u2013 A West Coast Politician with Eastern European Ties<\/h4>\n
Looking Beyond Single-Issue Voting<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Is The Cannabis Industry the New Prohibition Party?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"