The NYN Interview: Smarter Approaches to Marijuana (SAM)

ALEXIS YOUNG: Between the two-tier market infrastructure and the Seeding Opportunity Initiative, big, well-funded companies will not be able to enter the cannabis industry without being one of the ten previously licensed medical marijuana operators. But according to Smarter Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), the Office of Cannabis Management’s (OCM) equity and anti-monopoly policies might not be enough to prevent “big cannabis”, or an industry that can become as predatory and powerful as [the pharmaceutical or tobacco industry]. For more on that, I spoke with Will Jones, SAM’s Director of Community Engagement and Outreach. What is SAM’s stance and understanding of how New York State is ushering in retailers and dispensaries? 

WILL JONES: So like with many of the things  when it comes to marijuana commercialization, legalization, I say they're wonderful ideas and great concepts, but when we look at how it's played out in, states, like Illinois, which when they were going through legalization, they said that they had the most equity centric, laws in the nation, that was their big talking point, that the whole campaign, you look a year later in Chicago, and there wasn't even a single business owned by entrepreneurs of color. 

AY: When you're discussing things like cannabis, other substances come up as well as substance use disorder and harm reduction is making its way into the mainstream, though for folks who have been dealing in outreach with HIV AIDS and who have been in the fight against substance use disorder for decades now, they are now seeing government policies that encourage harm reduction. What is SAM’s stance on harm reduction? 

WJ: We're very specific. Our organization’s focus is on marijuana policy. I want to be clear because harm reduction brings up a lot of different policies for different drugs, and we are focused specifically on the marijuana issue and to that point, I think when we look at a place like Portugal, right, there is no big commercial industry that is profiting off of cannabis being decriminalized there. People use it, it’s de-stigmatized, and people are able to get treatment in certain instances where there is problematic use. There are different channels where they are guided to if that's an issue as well, but the stigma is gone and people seek treatments. It’s treated much more of a health issue there. I see no reason why we can't have a similar approach. I'm not saying it should be exactly like Portugal. 

AY: There are some policies in the MRTA that block marketing to kids doing what JUUL did targeting teenagers. You can't use cartoon bubble lettering, certain bright colors, things like that. They reduce the risk of being attractive to kids, but SAM doesn't feel like that goes far enough. Can you speak more about that? 

WJ: So, we have worked and are working in states where legalization has happened for the exact same thing. We're actually working on the federal level to introduce stiffer penalties for businesses that have things that are attractive to kids. The reality is though, once it's legal, it's always going to be a back-and-forth battle and you've got billions of dollars on one side and then you've got public health and local people working in their community and prevention on the other side. It sounds great, but then when we look at how this has played out in every other thing, talking about the lottery, talking about JUUL, talking about opioids, we see unfortunately that public health gets the short end of the stick. Our perspective is not to control what an individual does, we're very big on this, it's not to say you can or cannot use cannabis as an individual, but to say [to] businesses, no, we don’t think that you guys should be selling it, and to us, that's two different categories. 

AY: Well, thanks again so much, Will. I've really enjoyed speaking with you today. 

WJ: Thanks for having me Alexis, I really enjoyed the conversation. 

THE PRECEDING IS A TRANSCRIPT FROM THE ORIGINAL BROADCAST VERSION AND HAS BEEN EDITED FOR CLARITY.