On Thursday, Oct. 24, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the self-professed democratic socialist and longtime independent senator from Vermont, released his ambitious cannabis legalization plan.<\/p>\n
The plan includes the now-standard buffet of progressive cannabis policy ideas: removing the plant from the Controlled Substances Act, creating a robust equity program to address the racist War on Drugs, and expunging criminal records. But Sanders\u2019s plan also includes one unorthodox idea: It calls for banning tobacco and cigarette corporations from \u201cparticipating in the marijuana industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outlined on the \u201cLegalizing Marijuana<\/a>\u201d page on his campaign website, Sanders says that one of his goals is to \u201censure legalized marijuana does not turn into Big Tobacco.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBig Tobacco is already targeting the marijuana industry for its profits,\u201d the platform states. \u201cAs president, Bernie will not allow marijuana to turn into Big Tobacco.\u201d Instead, he calls for programs to \u201cincentivize marijuana businesses to be structured like nonprofits,\u201d with an emphasis on cooperatives that will \u201ccreate jobs and economic growth in local communities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He would also \u201cban companies that have created cancer-causing products or [are] guilty of deceptive marketing\u201d and \u201cinstitute market share and franchise caps to prevent consolidation and profiteering.\u201d<\/p>\n Sanders\u2019s plan to keep large tobacco corporations out of the cannabis industry makes sense: those companies have already started making moves in Canada\u2019s cannabis industry, and the senator is notoriously opposed to elite consolidation at the expense of the average citizen. However, it\u2019s not clear if the plan would work \u2014 and why it doesn\u2019t also address the threat of the pharmaceutical and alcohol industries.<\/p>\n There is no doubt that Big Tobacco has designs on the cannabis biz. That threat is, in fact, already upon us.<\/p>\n Last December, tobacco giant\u00a0Altria<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 Virginia-based owner of\u00a0Philip Morris<\/a>\u00a0and Marlboro cigarettes \u2014\u00a0invested<\/a>\u00a0$1.8 billion in Canadian cannabis giant\u00a0Cronos Group<\/a>, the Toronto-area licensed producer that last year became the\u00a0first canna-business to be listed on the NASDAQ<\/a>. The investment gave Altria a 45% stake in the company, with an option to increase its stake to 55% over the next five years.<\/p>\n Of course, both companies waxed optimistic and enthusiastic about the deal. \u201cAltria is the ideal partner for Cronos Group, providing the resources and expertise we need to meaningfully accelerate our strategic growth,\u201d said Cronos CEO Mike Gorenstein in a statement.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cInvesting in Cronos Group as our exclusive partner in the emerging global cannabis category represents an exciting new growth opportunity for Altria,\u201d echoed Howard Willard, Altria\u2019s CEO, in his own statement.<\/p>\n The\u00a0Altira website<\/a>\u00a0now states: \u201cAltria Group holds diversified positions across tobacco, alcohol and cannabis.\u201d<\/p>\n And we can expect more such news. This July, the\u00a0Financial Times<\/a>\u00a0reported that\u00a0Imperial Brands<\/a>, UK-based producer of Davidoff and Gauloises cigarettes, made a big investment in the cannabis sector with a \u00a375 million deal to take a stake in Vancouver\u2019s\u00a0Auxly Cannabis Group<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cDiversifying our next generation products portfolio with this investment provides Imperial with further options for future growth,\u201d said Imperial\u2019s chief development officer Matthew Phillips, in the predictable corporate-speak.<\/p>\n And this was not the company\u2019s first such investment. Last year, Imperial took a small minority stake in British biotech company\u00a0Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies<\/a>. The name leaves little doubt what plant its research is focused on.<\/p>\n But Big Tobacco isn\u2019t the only corporate interest poised to descend on the cannabis sector and establish dominance \u2014 nor the principal one.\u00a0<\/p>\n Certainly, when it comes to\u00a0patenting\u00a0cannabis products, it is Big Pharma that has the big lead. Last year, a\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0jointly undertaken by Washington, D.C.-based cannabis industry analyst\u00a0New Frontier Data<\/a>\u00a0and London-based cannabis biotechnology firm\u00a0Grow Biotech<\/a>\u00a0named the top applicants for cannabis patents in Canada (where such patents are more available than elsewhere). Seven of Canada\u2019s top 10 cannabis patent holders were found to be major multinational pharmaceutical companies, including Ciba-Geigy (a subsidiary of Swiss giant\u00a0Novartis<\/a>), New York-based\u00a0Pfizer Products<\/a>\u00a0and the United Kingdom\u2019s\u00a0GW Pharma<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In March 2013, it was\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that one of Canada\u2019s leading licensed producers had entered a partnership with the national subsidiary of\u00a0Sandoz<\/a>\u00a0(also a wing of Novartis). The deal, hailed as a milestone for the arrival of cannabis in the corporate economy, called for joint research and co-branding by British Columbia\u2019s\u00a0Tilray<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Sandoz Canada<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Big Booze is also pursuing synergy with Big Bud.\u00a0<\/p>\n CNBC<\/a>\u00a0reported in August 2018 that the Canadian subsidiary of\u00a0Molson Coors<\/a>\u00a0had entered into a joint venture with the\u00a0Hydropothecary Corporation<\/a>, a Quebec licensed producer,\u00a0to produce cannabis-infused drinks for the Canadian market.\u00a0Lagunitas<\/a>, a California beer brewer owned by the Dutch giant\u00a0Heineken<\/a>, is already marketing a cannabis-infused sparkling water brand called\u00a0Hi-Fi Hops<\/a>. Yes, it contains hops like beer, but contains no alcohol \u2014 just THC. It\u2019s being marketed in California, where beer now has to compete with legal pot. It seems the booze biz may be adopting an attitude of \u201cIf you can\u2019t beat \u2019em, join \u2019em.\u201d<\/p>\n Nearly simultaneously, one of North America\u2019s top brewers\u00a0sank $4 billion<\/a>\u00a0into the continent\u2019s top legal cannabis cultivator. Shares of Ontario-based licensed producer\u00a0Canopy Growth Corp<\/a>\u00a0jumped nearly 30% after beer giant\u00a0Constellation Brands<\/a>\u00a0announced its investment in the Canadian company.<\/p>\n After years of\u00a0lobbying against<\/a>\u00a0cannabis legalization, both Big Pharma and the alcohol industry have recently turned around on the question. Last year, the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA<\/a>) issued a\u00a0p<\/a>olicy position in support<\/a>\u00a0of states\u2019 rights \u201cto establish a legal, well-regulated, adult-use cannabis marketplace,\u201d taking many observers by surprise.<\/p>\n Among the various reasons for a legal firewall keeping Big Tobacco out of the cannabis industry is the danger of the addictive and carcinogenic products of the former being conflated with the decidedly safer and friendlier products of the latter in the public mind.<\/p>\n This was well illustrated in comments this week by the Republican Sen. John Cornyn from Texas. In a speech on the Senate floor ahead of\u00a0hearings on the health impacts<\/a>\u00a0of cannabis, Cornyn questioned the push to end federal cannabis prohibition \u2014 and drew a dubious analogy to the tobacco industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no shortage of people who claim that marijuana has endless health benefits and can help patients struggling from everything from epilepsy to anxiety to cancer treatments,\u201d Cornyn said. \u201cThis reminds me of some of the advertising we saw from the tobacco industry years ago where they actually claimed public health benefits from smoking tobacco, which we know as a matter of fact were false and that tobacco contains nicotine, an addictive drug, and is implicated with cancers of different kinds.\u201d<\/p>\n This despite the fact that studies\u00a0have\u00a0demonstrated<\/a>\u00a0that moderate cannabis use holds no risk of lung damage \u2014 in vivid contrast to tobacco. And there is\u00a0mounting evidence of the medical efficacy<\/a>\u00a0of cannabis for various ailments.<\/p>\n So, much of the progress that has been made in eroding the cannabis stigma in recent years could be reversed through its association with tobacco.<\/p>\n But more importantly, in the struggle between\u00a0small producers\u00a0and\u00a0home cultivators<\/a>\u00a0on one hand and corporate cannabis on the other, the threat doesn\u2019t just come from the tobacco industry. Maybe there\u2019s a case for Sanders\u2019 proposed firewall to be extended to the pharmaceutical and alcohol industries as well.<\/p>\n Of course, many of the giants of today\u2019s cannabis landscape have arrived at their dominant position without infusions of capital from these other industries \u2014 pointing to a more intractable long-term dilemma.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong>\u00a0do you think cannabis should be sold by large corporations?<\/p>\n The post Bernie\u2019s Pot Legalization Plan Bars Big Tobacco \u2014 But Would It Work?<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Oct. 24, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the self-professed democratic socialist and longtime independent senator from Vermont, released his ambitious cannabis legalization plan. The plan includes the now-standard buffet of progressive cannabis policy ideas: removing the plant from the Controlled Substances Act, creating a robust equity program toContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6748,4053,4798,50,960,3157,687,4801,5711,81,1088],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39187"}],"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\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39188,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39187\/revisions\/39188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why the Threat of Big Tobacco Is Real<\/h4>\n
But What About Big Pharma & Big Booze?<\/h4>\n
The Case for a Tobacco-Cannabis Firewall<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Bernie\u2019s Pot Legalization Plan Bars Big Tobacco \u2014 But Would It Work?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"