Dave Silberman

Having failed to convince the public that our disastrous War on Drugs will find success if we just wait long enough, prohibitionists have frantically switched arguments, and now warn about the supposed evils of “big weed” and “commercialization,” rather than the substance itself. If we legalize cannabis, they say (now), money-hungry corporations will air advertisements on Saturday morning cartoons and hook your kids.

There are two main problems with this argument. One, of course, is its rank disingenuity: the same people who now claim to support decriminalizing the cultivation of one or two plants for personal use as a supposed alternative to full legalization actively lobbied against exactly that proposal when the Vermont House of Representatives considered it just four short months ago. The second problem with the “big weed” argument is that it’s entirely divorced from reality.

In the real world, as opposed to the fantasyland that prohibitionists want us to believe we live in, cannabis is already a lucrative commercial product. According to a non-partisan report commissioned by the Legislature in 2014, Vermonters spend nearly $200 million per year on cannabis. Collectively, we consume more cannabis per capita than the residents of any other state where it remains illegal.

We recently saw a typical example of how cannabis is “commercialized” in Vermont today when police arrested a Bennington couple on Sept. 6 on various drug and weapons charges. Police reports painted a grim picture of the impact of prohibition: instead of cannabis being sold at reputable retailers who check ID, it is sold from people’s homes, often in poor neighborhoods and alongside more addictive and dangerous drugs, and to any willing customer regardless of age. Instead of THC extracts being manufactured in safe, laboratory settings, they are often produced in dense residential neighborhoods, where an accidental butane-fueled explosion could leave multiple families homeless. And it’s safe to assume that zero sales taxes were collected on the nearly $400,000 in cannabis sales alleged to have been booked by the Bennington couple in the past year alone.

This is what the “commercial” cannabis market looks like today, but it doesn’t have to look that way. Legalizing cannabis will clean up the existing unregulated, underground, and often violent market, just as it has in Colorado, Washington and Oregon. Not a single TV commercial for cannabis has ever aired in any of those states, drug dealers have largely fled, and rates of underage use have shown no increase following legalization.

I propose we take a smart approach instead. We should craft sensible regulations that protect public health, and prevent chains of dispensaries from clustering in certain neighborhoods, giving municipalities ultimate control. We should demand that legalization includes requirements for in-state majority ownership and control of cannabis businesses to encourage socially responsible business behavior and community reinvestment. Our law should encourage small-scale cultivation with affordable license fees, so that our farmers have a new option for diversified agriculture, and that our neighbors who already surreptitiously grow cannabis today can “go legit,” as the vast majority desire. And, importantly, any adult should be allowed to bypass the retail market entirely by growing two or three plants at home for her personal consumption.

Legalization will not bring commercialization of cannabis to Vermont – it’s already here. Instead of continuing to incentivize the frequently dangerous illicit market, it’s time for Vermont’s Legislature to create a reasonably regulated market that gives adults safe, legal access to a substance that is objectively less harmful than alcohol.

Dave Silberman, Middlebury, is an attorney and pro bono legalization advocate.