The Politics of Cannabis

"It’s a balance between regulation for public safety and bureaucracy. You don’t want to get into a situation that the regulation is so ominous."

By Fal Adams

Hollywood Weekly: Its an honor to be speaking with you this afternoon, thank you for taking the time to sit down with Hollywood Weekly Magazine. The event was super busy, I’d say that was a huge success for the cause. There are many cannabis events worldwide which I’m sure you’ve attended. What I enjoyed very much about this discussion in particular is that it answered so many legal and scientific inquiries; meanwhile opening up many other doorways. Lets jump right in..You mentioned there was a bill on its 4th or 5th mark up that treats cannabis as an “agricultural product” i.e. lettuce, etc.. which, from the standpoint of the federal office means there would be no regulation necessary. Whats the main argument for regulation? Dr. Metzler: “Its always been listed as a substance that is highly addictive: an illegal substance that leads to crime, a gateway to drug-using behavior. When you have that going on, it is largely because of political pressure. ‘Just say no to drugs’ and that sort of thing. Cannabis listed as a gateway drug is the main argument.

HW: The FDA has just approved the first drug which is cannabis-based to treat epilepsy. What kind of message does this send to any skeptics of the medical effects of cannabis? DM: “It starts to send a very strong message of the strength [of cannabis.] The FDA approval is such a stringent process, this softens the skeptical view. A lot of people see cannabis as strictly a so-called ‘party drug’ in their view. Pretty much what they see is the ability of people to get in car accidents, law enforcement campaigning ‘driving vaped gets you arrested’ in Florida.. It sends a message that the clinical trials would all have to be at or above par, effectively.”

HW: As a former prosecutor, you stated that regulating dispensaries in the industry would be a task worth pursuing if you were still assuming this role. How would you go about those regulations? What sort of standards would you put into place? DM: “So a couple of things relative to regulations..If you look at a number of the states like California or Portland, what you have to really regulate is the number of pop-up shops because the over saturation of the markets for example in California there’s one on every corner. So the question becomes setting regulation for the shops to in fact have quality control processes. To use cannabis that is tested for pesticides or additives or any of those kinds of things. You really have to regulate those for purposes of standards and safety. You don’t want to over-regulate so that people go out of business. It’s a balance between regulation for public safety and bureaucracy. You don’t want to get into a situation that the regulation is so ominous. What ends up happening is that it really just doesn’t make sense to do it. thats not what you want to do. You want to be able to strike that balance.”

HW: Regarding negative stereotypes, why do you believe there has been such a harsh focus on the negative influence versus the positive? DM: “So in terms of the negative stereotypes..the negative stereotypes are everywhere. Particularly from a visual standpoint. And keep in mind that, really, what you end up happening with having the negative stereotypes are, you know, these kind of seedy images of people having pot parties or behaving in an unruly manner, those kinds of things. You also have people in a lot of people’s mind who are generally black and brown people really engaging in criminal behavior. And so people are saying ‘I don’t want that criminal element in my neighborhood.’ So, you have that.. also, since there is no counter or at least no significant counter images, what ends up happening is that the negative message goes out more rapidly and more easily because people have a fear and its a danger. Its all of those kinds of things. Keep in mind you have a lot of people who don’t support it. For example Big Pharma is one of the industries that really doesn’t support it because they understand that it would threaten their market superiority. As from a law enforcement standpoint too.. what law enforcement is concerned about are these campaigns subtly aimed at the drivers. What they want to make sure doesn’t happen is that you use cannabis as a cover or a pretext for trafficking illegal drugs and other illegal activities. Growing cannabis on public land, violence in use of firearms in the cultivation and distribution in cannabis. Thats a lot of what you see relative to the negative stereotypes. From the positive standpoint: at the top is this notion that it needs