CANNABIS is going legit. This year, Canada will become the latest country to join a small but growing number of regions where it is legal to smoke marijuana.
But some fear that this global trend could lead to the plant’s growers and sellers taking control of the market to maximise profits and recruit new users, and fighting any controls on its sales and marketing techniques. One worry is that, left unchecked, the cannabis industry might become as rich and powerful as the tobacco and alcohol industries did in the last century.
“The marijuana industry is where tobacco was in about 1890,” says at the University of California, San Francisco. “Tobacco went on to develop immense political power, hire lawyers and lobbyists and dominate regulators.”
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Canada offers an alternative approach, one in which public health is at the forefront. Under plans , cannabis would be as tightly regulated as tobacco or alcohol. Is this enough to halt the rise of Big Cannabis?
“The marijuana industry is where tobacco was in about 1890. It went on to develop immense power”
In the West, the case for legalising cannabis has been gaining ground for some time. It has long been one of the most widely used recreational drugs, yet in most parts of the world it is criminalised. This ruins lives, wastes police time and fills jails.
Over the past two decades, various regions have legalised medical marijuana and some have begun to decriminalise its recreational use, too. While cannabis is still illegal in the US at the federal level, for example, it will soon be possible to smoke pot without getting arrested in eight states and Washington DC. Several other countries have also decriminalised it in some way, including Portugal and Spain (see map).
For many across the political spectrum, the trend toward legalisation is a rare, welcome instance of policymakers aligning laws with common practice. Yet some worry that enthusiasm for this change shouldn’t mean we allow a free for all.
The warnings come from some surprising corners. Steve Rolles of the pro-legalisation UK think-tank spoke against legalisation in Ohio in 2015. “The whole tenor of the campaign was unethical and highly dubious,” he says. If passed, the state ballot would have given 10 investors control of the state’s marijuana market – .
People also objected to the campaign mascot. “Buddie” was an anthropomorphised marijuana plant with a bud for a head and a superhero’s body, complete with bulging pectorals and a cape. It toured college campuses urging students to vote Yes.
Critics said and pointed to similarities with the controversial “Joe Camel” cartoon used to advertise Camel cigarettes in the 1990s. The measure failed.
Why the concerns, if cannabis is safe? While addiction is less common for cannabis than with drugs such as heroin, some people do become heavy users and cannot quit. It can also sometimes trigger a psychotic episode or even longer-term problems such as schizophrenia.
In Colorado, where cannabis was legalised for recreational use in 2014, some people have unintentionally eaten .
Colorado responded to these incidents by to make it clear how much is equivalent to a single “serving” of 10 milligrams of THC, the compound that gets you high. Either the food itself must be marked with these servings, such as with products like cannabis-laced chocolate, or where that isn’t possible, such as for bulk products like pot granola, it must be packaged in single servings.
Mainstream marijuana
This episode may have helped shape Canada’s proposed guidelines, which require products containing cannabis to state the product’s strain and potency. Such “dosage” labelling is especially useful for food products, like chocolate and brownies, says Rolles, who advised the task force set up to figure out how best to legalise cannabis.
That’s not just to avoid people eating them by mistake but also because new users or those who normally smoke it may not know that the effects of cannabis take longer to appear if it is ingested. “You need to have clear warnings that effects develop over two hours, so don’t re-dose before that point,” says Rolles.
The Canadian guidelines also go a lot further. All cannabis products – however they are ingested – will have to be sold in plain packs, which must carry health warnings. It would be sold in shops, but it couldn’t be advertised or subject to promotions. That’s important, says of RAND, a global policy research organisation, because for-profit companies will naturally prioritise profit over public health. “They’re going to be making most of their money off the heavy users and they’re going to be working hard to maintain the heavy users,” he says.
To prevent this, other public health measures in Canada’s proposals include price controls and a cap on the maximum potency of any product. These steps help protect not only the heavy users, but young people, who are thought to be most vulnerable to any ill-effects. It’s the same way many countries regulate alcohol, which like cannabis can be taken in modest quantities without too much risk but has potential for abuse.
Could Canada’s guidelines help other regions decriminalise cannabis without inviting industry excesses? California, the most populous state in the US, voted for recreational use last year, but its regulations are still being thrashed out.
But Canada and the US have very different outlooks, says Keith Humphreys at Stanford University: Americans have long been more in favour of unfettered capitalism and against government interference. Controls on advertising are seen as clashing with companies’ rights to free speech, for example.
“They’re going to be making most of their money off the heavy users and they’ll work hard to keep them”
There’s also a difference in how cannabis legalisation comes about. In Canada, legalisation comes from the government, with public health a priority, after the public elected a prime minister who vowed to carry it out. In the US it stems from state ballot propositions, initiated by activists and funded by medical marijuana businesses or venture capitalists, who may then go on to influence drafting of state laws. That was palpable in the ballot to legalise recreational cannabis in Ohio.
The state-by-state approach in the US may be the only thing keeping TV and radio stations from accepting and running cannabis advertisements, as they need a federal licence to operate. “It’s an ambiguous situation for the big corporate players,” says Glantz.
Still, with California’s recent vote to legalise – along with three other states – Humphreys predicts they will soon come flocking. “It’s a massive market,” he says. “That’s an earthquake in terms of how the US handles this plant.” And then someone will have to figure out how to regulate the markets.
One thing is clear: that will need to happen soon. “Once that very wealthy powerful industry is fully established it’s going to be hard getting it back in its cage,” says Glantz.
The prohibition paradox
While cannabis is relatively safe, some users experience ill effects, including addiction and schizophrenia. That’s not an argument against legalisation, says of the UK drugs think-tank Transform – in fact, it’s precisely why it needs to be legalised.
For one thing, a legal, regulated marketplace should make cannabis less accessible to teenagers. Legalisation tends to go hand-in-hand with minimum age limits for use, similar to how most regions legislate alcohol. Some marijuana will still be accessible to teens, as happens now with booze, but it should be thinner on the ground as high street shops start to put illegal dealers out of business.
Another benefit of legalisation is a return of milder strains of marijuana. Currently, illegal dealers have no incentive to sell these as the stronger stuff is more lucrative. This is why the strength of the average joint sold on the street has risen over the past few decades from 3 per cent THC – the compound in that gets you high – to about 15 per cent. “It’s like going to a pub and being obligated to drink vodka when you just want a beer,” says Rolles.
In fact, this is exactly what happened during alcohol prohibition in the US in the 1920s; bootleggers mainly sold spirits because they were easier to transport and made more profit.
In Colorado, where cannabis has been legal since 2014, you can now buy marijuana in a range of strengths, and it’s all clearly labelled. For this reason, Rolles says Colorado’s approach is better than prohibition. But it may not do as much to protect users (see main story).
This article appeared in print under the headline “Nip it in the bud”
Article amended on 25 January 2017
In view of the widespread use of legal substances like alcohol and tobacco we have clarified our statement about the popularity of cannabis
