Carla Lowe was working as a substitute teacher in California when she began her crusade. “I got started quite innocently about thirty-seven, almost thirty-eight years ago,” Lowe recalled. She’d been asked to take a turn as the president of the Parent-Teacher Association, a position that involved surveying parents about their concerns. The top concern, by far, was drugs, which prompted Lowe to start writing to legislators in the state house. When she soon realized that many of her students (and her son) were using marijuana, the issue became one that extended beyond a single school district and a one-year PTA obligation—it penetrated her conscience, her classrooms, and other schools across California. After visiting the East Coast to write a white paper, a government report giving insight on an issue, she was motivated to continue legislative work centered on kids and drug use. She became a full-time anti-marijuana activist. She quit teaching to become a full-time citizen legislator, traveling “around the world on behalf of Mrs. Reagan,” coordinating national conferences, and heading a speakers’ bureau.
Following the midterm elections, the ballot box returns disappointed not only Democrats, but also groups that advocate for relatively conservative approaches to marijuana policy. Most states with referenda for cannabis reform saw those legalization initiatives pass. “The second you change the stereotype of a marijuana user from a 40-year-old stoner living in his mom’s basement to an 80-year-old grandma with cancer, you give people permission to be okay with marijuana,” laments Kevin Sabet, a former advisor to the Obama administration and co-founder of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM).In a media conversation heavily centered on the proponents for national legalization policies, Sabet and other anti-legalization advocates appear peripheral to both constituents and the broader national consensus.
This lack of stature is not indicative of any absence of passion for their cause. There are numerous individuals and organizations dedicated to counter-lobbying these upcoming ballot measures. But, when it comes to compelling a diversified America, many are left wondering if anti-legalization advocates’ fervor is enough in the face of the numerous challenges confronting them.
The handful of organizations at the forefront of anti-legalization advocacy have similar motivations, concerns, and methodologies. Amy Ronshausen, the Deputy Director of the Drug Free America Foundation and Save Our Society From Drugs (SOS), explains their operational approach: “SOS works at both the national and state levels to educate, mobilize, and share resources with like-minded groups and individuals.” The anti-legalization front is not just dependent on its throng of dedicated individuals and rosters, however. It frequently relies on medical research done by third parties, another force for giving their stance authority. This approach is apparent in their promotional and educational materials where nearly every sentence cites sources like Office of National Drug Control reports, National Institute on Drug Abuse statements, and prominent medical researchers from around the globe.
Though they share coherent and coordinated visions, opponents of marijuana legalization are by no means uniform. Many come from public service backgrounds, but others point to alternative origins. Carla Lowe, the former substitute teacher, is just one example. Sabet, an advocate of particular prominence in the media and among his colleagues, echoed his peers’ sentiments about marijuana’s public health connotations and organizational approaches to advocacy. Sabet’s organization, SAM, has an advisory board that serves as an index of leaders for the anti-legalization cause. On its honorary advisory board, for example, SAM touts politician Patrick J. Kennedy and Canadian-American journalist David Frum. Kennedy, taking a respite from political life, has centered his energy and influence on creating public conversation around mental health issues and recently published a short piece disparaging marijuana on OZY, a micro-news website and platform. Frum also hasn’t hesitated to put his doubts about legalization into words. As a senior editor for The Atlantic, he lends an authoritative voice for conservative thought on marijuana and wrote about the serious risks of marijuana for CNN.
Frum, Kennedy, and other advocates predict the drastic commercialization of pot, spurring another “Big Tobacco.” Kennedy used this possibility as a slant for his recent commentary published by National Public Radio (NPR). Kennedy foresees legalization as a “[marijuana] marketing machine that will spring up.” He describes Big Tobacco’s marketing focus as “hook them young, and they have a customer for life.” He fears that a marijuana reincarnation of Big Tobacco would similarly exploit youth for profit. Anti-marijuana advocates scorn addiction driven by marijuana distributors’ desire for profit and the influence of marketing techniques. Bob DuPont, a leader in drug abuse prevention and treatment at the Institute for Behavior and Health, encourages others to consider the dangers of a society with pot vendors lining the streets like McDonald’s or Starbucks. If people are given the liberty and access to marijuana, will they abuse these freedoms? If marijuana is legalized, what is next? Though a dystopian lens, it is a thought experiment showing how legalization, brought to its extreme, may cripple society.
Many anti-legalization arguments, however, are not grounded in fear or theoretical conceptions of an America where weed is legalized. Colorado, unlike DuPont’s thought experiment, has been a tangible case study for many advocates’ concerns with permitting recreational use. To most anti-legalization organizations, it is a particularly powerful indication that legalization is neither economically nor socially profitable. While pro-legalization advocates endorse expected increases in state tax revenues from marijuana, the opposition undercuts the new legislation’s economic utility. “It’s a dangerous human experiment that has resulted in a failed policy. The idea of legalization sounded better to voters than the actual implementation; they didn’t realize what they were getting into,” Ronshausen said.
Studying Colorado, through a catalog of applicable facts and relevant anecdotes, is not the only way anti-legalization advocates seek to validate their arguments. Frum’s columns are often noted for excluding fear-based arguments and follow a prevent-not-punish logic. His arguments correlate with the larger aims of SAM. It’s not a strictly anti-marijuana approach; the organization suggests that people should not be stigmatized for casual use while also asserting that smoking marijuana is not a productive decision. Following this, Frum suggests that law should be responsible for preventing the vulnerable from being overwhelmed or coerced by their circumstances into making risky decisions. This is where marijuana—deemed a risky decision by Frum and SAM—comes into play. He does see the trade-offs of opposing legalization, but grounds himself in the belief that preventing legalization will halt long-term increase in unstable drug use that compromises the well-being of vulnerable constituents.
Frum’s pairing with Kennedy, a notable Democrat, on the SAM honorary board is a gesture for anti-legalization advocates’ push for bipartisan appeal. This bipartisanship prevents reliance on heavily politicized arguments and marks the adoption of a more balanced approach. At the same time, it is appropriate to be skeptical of the earnestness and depth of the contributions made by high-profile public faces. There is a difference between pairing marijuana legalization with other issues forming a political platform, as opposed to focusing on it as the centerpiece of someone like Carla Lowe’s life work.
Like any vaguely political issue, funding is a crucial part of being effective for advocates on both sides of the debate. Part of why the widespread push for anti-legalization has not been as effective is its lack of comparative capital. When asked about issues with the push for anti-legalization, money was a common denominator among all anti-legalization advocates interviewed. “It’s simple,” Lowe observed, “We don’t have the money to do the ads. In the recent election, the druggies put ten million dollars into the states—Florida, and Alaska, and D.C., and Oregon.” The anti-legalization advocates were outspent 20-1 during the midterms. Pro-legalization proponents have collected contributions from a wide range of sources like investors and the burgeoning marijuana industry. According to Daily Mail, liberal tycoon George Soros has spent at least $80 million to get pot legalized in the U.S. and Uruguay.
One group that could be better engaged to provide additional funding is young adults. Advocates knew of few college-age groups actively engaged in anti-legalization activism. This is indicative of the need to craft effective communication strategies across demographic sectors. Save Our Society From Drugs’ Ronshausen reflected, “Traditionally we have found the college population to be the most difficult to engage as its an ever-changing population. Groups that focus on policy actions rather than prevention and education efforts seem to be more successful with this demographic. Rather than focusing on the anti-drug movement, college groups have been more successful when they focus more on a public health/healthy choices perspective.”
In terms of changing the paradigms surrounding marijuana, Sabet and DuPont also recognize that intergenerational understandings of marijuana differ. Dupont explains the difficulty of broad communication: “There are a lot of different people, and a lot of different opinions.” Today’s drug is fundamentally different than what many Americans, especially those of the baby boomer generation, perceive it to be. Both Sabet and DuPont discuss significant increases in the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels in marijuana. THC is the component of marijuana that causes a “high.” According to Lowe, “the potency of the THC is key” and legalizing marijuana would be unacceptable when considering what “THC does to our adolescents’ developing brains.” She also described THC’s fat solubility and bioaccumulation–meaning that it it builds up with continued smoking and most affects the brain and sexual organs. “The marijuana today…the street pot in California is somewhere around 15-18% THC, the good grass is 37%, and then you go and look at the oil that is smoked—it’s as high as 98% THC.”
Moreover, an increase in THC overdose hospitalizations has been recorded in Colorado. Anti-legalization advocates add to this claim with statistics about the effects of marijuana impairment as a risk for traffic deaths.The efficacy of medical reports and statistics as part of the anti-legalization campaign repertoire is dubious because both sides have different numbers in their favor. If reports and statistics were uniformly supporting one side, the current debate would be unnecessary. There is a body of advocates pushing a public health perspective that bolsters legalization campaigns and actively relays this perspective to both baby boomers and college-age youth. This perspective posits that marijuana use is less harmful than alcohol. Among a legion of other organizations, Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) maintains that marijuana use is safer for the consumer. Their arguments, like those of the broader anti-legalization campaign, are supported by a constellation of reports from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), American Scientists, and other such organizations.
Baby boomers trying to corroborate personal experience with conflicting medical accounts find difficulty asserting an opinion about marijuana ballot measures. If empowered, this faction of Americans could make for a substantial showing at the voting booths. Advocates themselves are grappling with their own doubts–not in their message, but in its delivery to those that might make the difference. It’s not simple. Advocates, like Lowe, suspect that anti-legalization and broader anti-marijuana advocate aims will not be achieved until the Millennials—the currently unengaged college students—recognize the impact it is having on the teenagers that preceded them. In Lowe’s words, “we are growing diminished adolescence and I think that does not bode well for the future of our country. A diminished adolescence equals a diminished America.”