THE ENVY CORPS PERFORMS DWELL (with strings)

dispensing cannabidiol in December 2018. Those incremental improvements are part of what persuaded Brad Knott to launch his campaign.

“I’d wanted to do this for a long time and the time was never right,” he said.

Knott started in politics as Reagan was reinvigorating the War on Drugs. His approach has always been practical, focusing on what is possible.

“I don’t like to get into just lost causes,” Knott explained. “It takes up too much energy, there’s too many fights that we can win.”

After a series of conversations with friends early last year, he decided the fight to reform Iowa’s marijuana laws was now winnable.

“For a long time in the ’80s and ’90s, I accepted the idea that change wasn’t viable,” Knott recalled. “But all the changes going around in the country, including in Iowa’s neighboring states, really started to change my thinking.”

It wasn’t just the increasing number of states that had legalized recreational cannabis use, or the polls showing solid majorities of Iowans favor legalization, that made the time seem right. It was also the increasingly widespread acceptance of the racist nature of the War on Drugs and the need for change as a basic matter of justice.

In 2020, the ACLU published a report documenting racial disparities in arrests for marijuana possession. Nationwide, a Black person was 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than a white person, and at the state level, a Black Iowan was 7.26 times more likely to be arrested.

After Knott decided to work on reform, he approached the Iowa Democratic Party in hopes it would provide resources for the campaign. He was well connected in Democratic circles, and felt sure he could convince party leaders a sustained campaign for reform could help candidates win in Iowa. The party turned him down, and pursued other approaches on its way to massive defeats in November.

Knott also approached a major cannabidiol dispensary in Iowa, in hopes they might provide funding for a campaign. They wished him well, but that was all.

“Once the funding for a real, paid campaign went out the door, I had to switch to a self-supporting organization,” he said. “I thought about the early Obama effort during his first run for president. They created tools for people to organize on their own and do local campaigning.”

“We tried to design the website with resources to facilitate that. To help people get conversations about reform started.”

It’s an approach that appealed to Parker McNally, a student at Kirkwood Community

College, who recently joined CSC as a volunteer organizer in the Iowa City area.

“With an issue such as cannabis reform, opinions can be incredibly divided, especially in a state like Iowa,” McNally said. “I think it’s important for legislators, especially from the culturally conservative parts of the state where there might still be a stigma about marijuana use, to know they will have support from constituents if they are willing to participate in a serious discussion about reform.”

In 2020, the acLU published a report documenting racial disparities in arrests for marijuana possession. Nationwide, a Black person was 3.64 times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than a white person, and at the state level, a Black Iowan was 7.26 times more likely to be arrested.

McNally realizes that Iowa City isn’t a culturally conservative part of the state, but it is one that gives him a chance to meet other young people from across Iowa.

“Because it’s a college town, you get people from all over,” he said. “What I’m hoping to do is connect with people, especially from rural parts of the state, who are then willing to take the conversation back to their hometowns. The site has a lot of good resources to help them with that, including how to contact their legislators.”

To Knott, the site’s most important feature is its online petition.

“The campaign isn’t going to get on [lawmakers’] radar until we can demonstrate we have political strength,” he said. “There’s a difference between a petition where a person signs their name, and polls where you can remain anonymous.”

Knott acknowledges that even getting a serious debate on reform is an uphill struggle, and if debate leads to anything, it will still face an opponent in Gov. Reynolds. But he still thinks change, if only incremental change, is possible.

“If you’re going to get into politics you’ve got to have a bit of optimism about the possibility of change,” Knott said. “Or you’ll just never get anything done.”

Paul Brennan is Little Village’s News Director.