Pubdate: Sun, 20 Jun 2010
Source: Oakland Tribune, The (CA)
Copyright: 2010 Bay Area News Group
Contact: http://www.insidebayarea.com/feedback/tribune
Website: http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/314
Author: Josh Richman, Oakland Tribune
Cited: Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act http://www.taxcannabis.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Tax+Cannabis+Act
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

THE COLOR OF POT CAMPAIGN IS GREEN, AND BASED IN OAKLAND

Win or lose, the marijuana legalization measure on November's ballot 
proves one thing: The pot industry has arrived in California politics.

Oakland's most prominent purveyor of medical cannabis has almost 
single-handedly financed the Tax Cannabis 2010 campaign - a 
once-unthinkable occurrence. Election experts say it's a sign that 
the pot industry has reached a rarefied political pinnacle: Pot can 
afford to buy its way into voter-approved legitimacy.

Just as PG&E spent $46.4 million to push Proposition 16 and Mercury 
Insurance spent $15.9 million to push Proposition 17 to further their 
own interests this spring, so too is Oaksterdam University in Oakland 
shelling out millions to invest in its own economic future.

And Oaksterdam's owner, Richard Lee, could arguably make a mint if 
the measure passes.

Sure, the June primary's two corporate-backed measures failed. This 
one might, too: Early polling shows voter support is soft at best.

But legalized or not, marijuana, long an underground, counterculture 
province, is taking its place in California's political and business 
establishment alongside "The Man" - traditional corporate interests 
such as power utilities and insurance companies.

For his part, Lee agrees, though he doesn't embrace being "The Man."

"When we started the campaign, we did want to make this a legitimate 
political issue and I think we've succeeded already, win or lose," he said.

He and his measure's supporters have done so by framing it not just 
as drug legalization but as an issue of civil rights, by claiming 
hypocrisy in the legality and rampant advertising of alcohol; by 
arguing that a booming, legal cannabis industry could create 
much-needed jobs; and by touting public policy benefits, in that law 
enforcement costs would plummet while local governments could reap a 
windfall of new tax revenue.

But they'd not have had the forum to make these arguments in earnest 
had Lee not shelled $1.4 million of his own money to put the measure 
on November's ballot.

Capitalist Activists

"If you have enough money, you can qualify almost anything on the 
ballot," said Bob Stern, president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan 
Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles. That goes for 
marijuana just like any other industry.

"Clearly it's going to be the most controversial and interesting 
measure on the ballot, it'll be the measure most people will be 
talking about, so he's clearly achieved that - it will be front and 
center in the debate," Stern said. "I think it'll increase voter 
turnout, both on the libertarian and the liberal sides."

San Jose State political science professor Larry Gerston agreed.

"You see an opportunity and you take it," Gerston said. "I can't 
fault these people for being enterprising capitalists in a market 
that is virtually unregulated. They're pretty smart.

"These guys will have lobbyists; they're already building trade 
associations. It's all part and parcel of a burgeoning industry."

Some might say Lee stands to make a lot of money, more so if the 
measure passes. He has built a business infrastructure that includes 
a medical marijuana dispensary, a grow operation and a center that 
teaches others how to grow, all of which would put him at the 
forefront of recreational cannabis horticulture, sales and marketing 
as soon as it's legal. Even if it doesn't pass, the campaign is 
drawing attention to Oaksterdam University and its related businesses.

Lee said he doesn't see it that way.

"It's also a big risk, it's putting a big target on me, not to 
mention all the money that's being lost," he said. "And I see it as 
making it possible to have more competition."

The Politics of Pot

Signs of the industry's political mainstreaming abound. Oakland last 
year became the first U.S. city to tax medical cannabis proceeds - a 
tax masterminded by Lee.

"My goodness, that was a stroke of brilliance," Gerston said, in 
terms of legitimizing and mainstreaming the industry.

Last month, workers at Oakland cannabis businesses including Lee's 
joined United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5. Some now wonder 
whether union slate mailers this fall will urge a yes vote on the Tax 
Cannabis measure.

On the national scene, 14 states and the District of Columbia have 
adopted medical marijuana laws; bills are pending in other states, 
and voters in Arizona and South Dakota will see such ballot measures 
in November, as California and possibly Nevada vote on recreational 
legalization measures. And politicians on either side of the aisle - 
including Oakland mayoral candidate and former state Senate President 
Pro Tem Don Perata, a Democrat, and former New Mexico Gov. Gary 
Johnson, a Republican - endorse Lee's measure.

In fact, about a month after Perata's endorsement, Lee's S.K. Seymour 
LLC gave $10,000 to Perata's committee for a tobacco-tax measure. 
Coincidence, or a classic you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours 
political moment?

Of the $1.41 million Lee put into his own measure, almost $990,000 
went to Masterton & Wright, a Bolinas firm that gathers petition 
signatures for ballot measures.

But the campaign also is paying top-shelf pros such as spokesman Dan 
Newman, who also works for Democratic lieutenant governor nominee 
Gavin Newsom's campaign and for the "Level the Playing Field" 
independent-expenditure committee waging war on Republican 
gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman. Blue State Digital, a Washington, 
D.C.-based firm with past clients including the Obama for America 
presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the 
AFL-CIO, designed the measure's website. And Chris Lehane, a renowned 
political communications strategist dubbed a "master of disaster" for 
his spin work in the Clinton White House and campaigns, is doing work 
for the campaign free of charge.

"It's a serious campaign, it's gone beyond working on the fringes," 
said assistant professor Corey Cook, director of the University of 
San Francisco's Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good.

Raising the Green

It will be an uphill battle. Of three polls released last month, only 
the campaign's own showed more than 50 percent support, and even then 
by only a small margin. Any California political observer would say 
that's a tough place from which to start.

Lee said the campaign is using focus groups in order to target 
undecided voters and mobilize new voters, but he's done paying the bills.

"My main part was getting the language written," he said, "and then 
getting the petitions to get it on the ballot, and then to turn it 
over to the professionals to get it passed."

Yet an e-mailed fundraising plea raised $50,000 in April, he said. 
"We hope to raise $10 million, $10 each from a million people," Lee 
said, acknowledging that's not much for a California ballot measure 
but arguing a little will go a long way on the issue. "Our numbers go 
way up when we explain the issues and the measure in depth."

Cook agreed: "$10 million is nothing in California," he said - 
especially given the rise in advertising rates likely to accompany 
record spending in 2010's gubernatorial and senatorial elections. 
"But I would kind of be surprised, given a lot of other things going 
on in the state, if there's a lot of money pumped in on the 'no' side."

A "Public Safety First" coalition with members such as the California 
Police Chiefs Association, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the 
California Bus Association already is speaking out against Lee's 
measure, yet none of these groups has deep pockets.

Meanwhile, Tax Cannabis 2010 is building people power: Its Facebook 
page is "liked" by more than 97,000 people. For context, Democratic 
gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown has just more than 27,000 and 
Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman has close to 28,000.

"Three times as many contributions and three times as many votes, and 
you're in good shape," Cook observed, noting Facebook support doesn't 
necessarily translate to either. The committee won't report its 
finances again until early August.

Yet Tax Cannabis 2010 might have advantages that last month's 
corporate-funded measures lacked, Cook said.

PG&E and Mercury Insurance tried to educate the public for the first 
time about problems that, to many, seemed like no problem at all, 
while this measure addresses an issue that has been talked about for 
decades. "There's an idea that its time has come," Cook said.

"Part of it is the aging of the California electorate," he added, 
noting baby boomers in their 50s and 60s in many cases did and still 
do smoke marijuana. "That is the establishment now."

And while efforts to legalize marijuana always could have been framed 
as a revenue-raising effort, there's no better time to make that 
pitch than in the midst of a national recession and state fiscal crisis.

"This was a solution in search of a problem, but now there's a 
problem that matches it," Cook said, adding Lee and the measure's 
supporters "would be crazy not to be taking advantage of the 
political opportunity that's in front of them."
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake