By Shaleen Title and Matt Stoller (September 21, 2022)
This year, as a majority of voters in both parties continue to favor cannabis legalization, more people in the U.S. reported smoking marijuana than tobacco cigarettes.[1] With public support still growing, it’s only a matter of time before the federal government finally repeals its prohibition of the drug.
Such a change should be exciting to anyone who wants a more just, humane society. But a dangerous trend lurks behind the good news: Big Tobacco, among other powerful industry groups, is now lobbying for control over the legal cannabis market. The reasons why should worry us.
How marijuana legalization happens and the regulatory structure that emerges is, in many respects, a more important question than if it should happen. Done properly, and to foster community health, legalization could end a pointless crusade against a plant and all the people who use and sell it, and all its attendant costs.
But if we hand control of the process to conglomerates like Amazon.com Inc or the tobacco giant Altria Group Inc., the change could usher in harmful use and a resulting backlash that erases the hard-won victories of social justice and public health advocates.
As policymakers prepare to open the door to a national marijuana market, they must beware of monopolies — and structure the industry accordingly.
Shaleen Title
Matt Stoller
Consider the history of another major mind-altering product: alcohol. In 1919, the U.S. government banned the sale and possession of alcohol due to moral concerns and an epidemic of alcoholism. Little more than a decade later, confronted with crime and corruption that resulted from Prohibition, the nation reversed course, and Prohibition was repealed.
But the reversal didn’t return alcohol laws to the pre-1919 status quo. Instead, new policies allowed individual states tight regulation over the industry. Most prevented vertical integration, separating retailers, distributors and producers from one another to prevent consolidation, promote open markets and maintain more effective regulatory control over businesses.
Such a framework prevented the emergence of dominant alcohol conglomerates, fostered local control, kept use relatively low and all but eliminated organized crime activity.
After years of corporate lobbying, these protections have ebbed in much of the world; the alcohol industry has reconsolidated, and problematic alcohol use has, in turn, increased. In the U.K., which gradually deregulated its alcohol markets, prices dropped dramatically, and deaths from alcoholism spiked.[2]
Still, alcohol regulation in the U.S. can illustrate novel approaches to avoid monopolies and uplift small businesses.[3] Some states allow exemptions for small beer suppliers to directly reach customers through tasting rooms and direct sales at festivals, for example, and some also allow small wineries to ship directly to consumers around the country, as the recently introduced Small and Homestead Independent Producers Act would allow small cannabis farmers to do.[4]
We can see parallels in our approach to cannabis today. Because of federal prohibition, marijuana is only regulated at a state level.
Read the rest of the article here: https://www.parabolacenter.com/cannabis-legalization-must-address-monopoly-dangers/
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