Last night, I met with the fellow behind CMRC — “Citizens for Marijuana Regulation and Control” — Craig Johnson. We had actually met at the state convention in ‘06. This time, he’s starting from scratch again, having reframed the argument in a way that is pretty clever. His focus is on building grassroots networks that can retain momentum from election to election.
Here’s what makes the framing so successful: he’s moved the argument away from cannabis use to cannabis legalization. The basic argument is that only government regulation on cannabis of the sort we utilize for alcohol or tobacco will eliminate the black market and drive drug dealers out of schools and neighborhoods. We can see that alcohol regulation is generally successful at enforcing standards and preventing underage access — far more so than cannabis prohibition has done!
Whether a person approves of or dislikes marijuana is irrelevant in this argument because both sides stand to win if the drug war is ended and the government regulated cannabis as a consumer product. Because of this focus, CMRC is the first legalization group that has produced a platform that I could present to my neighbors with a straight face. (Even medi-pot has the problem of use vs. abuse. Here, we totally sidestep the issue of use.)
Another fine bonus is that this could be a great opportunity to attempt to increment my political organizing skill by (1d4). Most of the work so far for this group has been done in and around the big ‘D’ — almost nothing here. Craig’s goal is to make a significant showing in the 5 state house districts that comprise Travis County, and I’m currently the ‘point man’ in town. And so the planning begins…
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