Tag Archives: Big Marijuana

Tobacco Giant Invests in Vaping

Altria Invests in Vaping Giant, Juul, a Week After Doing the Same in Cronos, a Marijuana Cultivator

(Alexandria, VA) – It’s official. Big Tobacco is continuing its efforts to monopolize the marijuana industry. Today, Altria, one of the world’s largest producers and marketers of tobacco products, announced it is investing $12.8 billion in vaping giant, Juul, a company that controls 68% of the e-cigarette market. 


Here is why this is a big deal:  Continue reading Tobacco Giant Invests in Vaping

T-Mobile Under Fire for Superbowl Ad

Boycott T-Mobile for its Superbowl Ads

See T-Mobile ad here. Sign the petition here.   (Originally published in The Marijuana Report, February 15 edition)

In December, a grandmother protested the marketing of leggings printed with marijuana leaves to young toddlers. Now a group of angry parents is taking aim at T-Mobile, a larger target they say is trying to normalize drug use by targeting the message to children.

During the broadcast of Super Bowl LI on February 5, T-Mobile aired an ad with lifestyle guru Martha Stewart and rap artist Snoop Dogg (real name Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr.) during which the two bantered, making several not-so-veiled humorous references to marijuana.

Martha Stewart and Snoop Dog’s Potluck Dinner show on VH1 was used as the theme of a Superbowl ad for T-Mobile. It was seen by countless families with children, and parents see it as attempt to market marijuana — along with the cell phone use — to children.

The ad is meant to play off Stewart and Broadus’ VH1 reality show, “Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party,” a show geared to millennials that some reviewers concede is nothing more than an effort to normalize the use of marijuana.

Parents are not having it

During the Super Bowl, a T-Mobile ad ran with such references as ‘pot,’ ‘can o bisque,’ ‘greenery,’ and ‘purple cushions’ [Purple Kush is a popular strain of marijuana]. How much more of an attempt to normalize this to youngsters can you get? The Super Bowl is something whole families watch. This was the worst place to air a commercial like this UNLESS the goal was to make drug use a joke and get kids to think marijuana is ‘no big deal,’ “explained a Missouri mom who has had several friends lose children to drug abuse, including marijuana addiction.

She has organized a petition to boycott T-Mobile, understanding that she faces an uphill battle against a society that increasingly believes marijuana is not harmful.

However, she has the support of drug policy experts who have been warning of the same for years.  Drug policy expert Kevin Sabet, co-founder and President of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), explained, “Ads like this show exactly what the marijuana legalization movement is about—addiction for profit. Last year, tens of millions of pot lobby dollars bankrolled an initiative in California that would allow pot smoking ads to run on television.  Three months later, the same lobby promotes this ad during an event when millions of kids were watching.  It’s Big Tobacco all over again.”     (Originally published in The Marijuana Report, February 15 edition.)

See T-Mobile ad here. Sign the petition here.

Marijuana Moguls Succeed in Buying Off Colorado Ballot

Big Marijuana, Big Victory……..Temporarily

It’s Democracy at it’s worst when Big Marijuana buys off the process for gathering signatures in Colorado. Today, supporters of proposed initiative 139, a measure aimed to place reasonable controls on the sale of recreational marijuana in Colorado, announced that they will withdraw their initiative from potential consideration on the November 2016 general election ballot.

“I witnessed the buy off of the voting process this week, ” explained Jo McGuire, Five Minutes of Courage, Colorado Springs.

The marijuana industry has made it too expensive to move forward.  The Cannabist reported that marijuana businesses raised more than $300,000 within a few days.  The initiative would have capped the level of THC in marijuana at 16%.   Since marijuana was much weaker in the 1970s, 2-4% THC,  it’s hard to understand why 16% limit would anger the industry.   Amendment 139 was a health and safety plan to bring the number of emergency room hospitalizations down and possibly avoid at least some of the deaths caused by psychotic shooting sprees and other reactions to marijuana.   There is no money to be made in harm reduction, so supporters were not trying to make a profit.

“The Marijuana Moguls put a pile of campaign cash on the table and won. Our kids, and our communities are in crisis, for now,”  lamented Ron Castagno, a former Jefferson County high school principal one of the initiative’s designated representatives.

The move comes on the heels of a successful effort by the marijuana industry to stall the process and buy off signature gatherers to keep the initiative from moving forward.  After a two month delay, the Colorado Supreme Court unanimously rejected the claims concocted by the marijuana industry.

In addition to Castagno, the other mover behind the ballot was Denver mother Ali Pruitt.   She said: “As disappointed as I am to shelve these critical public safety reforms for now, we simply couldn’t go toe-to-toe with the Marijuana Moguls who committed tens of millions to defeat our common-sense controls on the sale of recreational marijuana.”

Supporters who developed Amendment 139 are also announcing that a new coalition is forming to hold Big Marijuana accountable. “We are not done,” emphasized Sue Anderson of the Healthy Colorado Coalition.

“With the initiative option off the table for 2016, it’s time for our elected leaders to stand with men like Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and recognize the harm that legalized pot has had on our state, and more importantly, to end their excuses and rein in an out-of-control marijuana industry.”    Denver has been forced to pay a security firm $650,000 in addition to its police force to keep it’s streets and malls safe.

“The commercialized marijuana industry once again showed that they are willing to put their profits ahead of the safety of our children and our communities,”  Castagna concluded.

For more information, contact: [email protected] 720-931-3700

Big Marijuana, Big Loss in Maine

Not Enough Signatures for Fall Ballot

An initiative to legalize marijuana in Maine failed to make the 2016 ballot today, after over 40,000 signatures legalization proponents submitted in favor of the proposal were invalidated due to irregularities.  This left legalizers well short of the 61,123 signatures needed to put the initiative to a vote this fall.

Almost half of the signatures submitted (47,686 of 99,229) were declared invalid.  More specifically, Maine election officials found that, among other irregularities:
  • Over 31,000 signatures were invalid because the signatures of petition circulators swearing that they witnessed signature collection did not match their signatures on file. (Indeed, one circulator was listed as the public notary on an incredible 5,099 petitions containing 26,779 signatures.)
  • Another 13,525 signatures were invalidated because they did not belong to a registered voter in the municipality where they were submitted.

Portland-Head-Lighthouse
Portland Head Lighthouse, Maine

“This is a huge sigh of relief for Mainers and our public health community, especially in a period where we are facing a serious and growing opiate crisis,” stated SAM Maine Director, Scott M. Gagnon.  “The last thing we needed amidst an addiction crisis is increased access and availability to drugs.  We are pleased that the Big Marijuana agenda will not be allowed to disrupt our efforts to protect and improve the health of Mainers and Maine communities.”  Gagnon has written about how the marijuana industry is trying to cash in on the heroin epidemic.
Dr. Kevin Sabet, President of SAM added, “This represents a victory for public health over industry profits.  Despite pouring money into Maine, it appears that the pot industry was unable to get enough real people to sign their petition.  The fact that almost a full 50% of the signatures were invalidated casts a cloud over the entire legalization movement in the state.”

Marijuana lobbyists and industry groups have also tried to legalize marijuana by going through the state legislature multiple times. These efforts failed, also.