Marijuana reform advocates are forcefully pushing back against a new poll commissioned by a prohibitionist group that purports to demonstrate that a majority of Americans oppose a pending marijuana rescheduling proposal—when, in reality, the survey is based on two leading questions that play into hypotheticals about potential consequences related to youth and foreign cartels.
Smart Approaches to Marijuana, or SAM for short, promoted survey results on Thursday. They claimed that “the poll shows that most Americans are against rescheduling cannabis.”
This alone would be enough to raise some eyebrows, given that national polling consistently shows a growing support, often bipartisan in nature, for the legalization of marijuana. The more incremental rescheduling plan pending before President Donald Trump—which would move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) wouldn’t even end criminalization.
What is Schedule III? The following are some of the ways to improve your own understanding. Allow cannabis companies to claim federal tax deductions, which they have been denied for years. Also relax certain restrictions on research that are applicable to Schedule I drugs.
SAM, via a poll by On Message Inc., focused on the relief aspect of the reform. They crafted questions that posed two hypotheticals regarding the impact of allowing industry to claim federal deductions.
The question was: If you were told the truth about the rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 which would lower some federal restrictions, would you support the rescheduling to a lesser classification? Rescheduling would provide marijuana companies with a financial incentive for them to market more to children.
The reasoning behind the claim that changing a show’s schedule would “incentivize” illegal marketing of children is unclear. When asked how they would respond, 63 per cent of respondents indicated that they were “less likely”. 18% said they are “more likely” while 19% said their opinion might change.
Adam Smith (executive director, Marijuana Policy Project) told MEDCAN24 that SAM was “spreading misinformation in order to confuse politicians and the general public” on Thursday.
He said: “Here’s the truth. It’s already illegal for cannabis companies to advertise to kids, and it can lead to serious penalties.” It would be no different if cannabis was moved from Schedule I into Schedule III or removed from Schedule III altogether.
Cannabis regulation includes universal age-gating. This is more effective than prohibition in keeping cannabis away from children. He said that the advertising limits are also strict.
Smith warned: “Don’t fall for the fear-mongering tactics of prohibitionists.” “Project SAM’s goal is not to protect kids, it is to drag us back to the dark days of hundreds of thousands of annual arrests, ruining the lives of otherwise law abiding people and packing prisons with people whose only ‘crime’ is possession of a plant that humans have been using safely for thousands of years.”
It asks: “If you knew that rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3 federal classification would reduce some federal restrictions on marijuana, would you be more or less likely to support rescheduling it into a lower classification? This question is: “If this were true: rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule 1 federal classification to Schedule 3 would allow federal restrictions to be reduced on marijuana. Would you more likely or less inclined to support the rescheduling?
Of the 1,000 likely voters involved in the survey—which took place from September 9-12 and has a +/-3.1 percentage point margin of error—58 percent of respondents said the idea that rescheduling could benefit cartels would make them less likely to back the reform, compared to 19 percent who said they’d be more likely and 23 percent with no opinion.
The illicit drug trade is a concern that crosses party lines. Both the media and government officials identify certain illegal operations linked to cartels. Last week, a House panel held an inquiry on the subject. The premise behind SAM’s query is that transnational drug groups pay taxes and accurately report their income sources.
Kevin Sabet is the president of SAM. He said that in a recent press release: “Americans are not interested in Washington giving Big Weed massive tax breaks so it can continue to spend money on advertising to hook our children.”
The rescheduling of events would increase the marketing pressure placed on children. “Voters from all sides say, no thank you,” said he.
Sabet continued, “This isn’t a partisan matter.” Everyone who is concerned about their safety and wants to ensure that foreign drug traffickers don’t profit from policy mistakes, speaks up. As he makes a crucial decision on marijuana policy, we hope the president listens to voters, and not a money-driven influence campaign.
Donald Trump endorsed the proposal for rescheduling, initiated by the Biden Administration, when he ran for his second term. Last month, he announced that he will make a choice within a couple of weeks. However, he did not specify whether he supports or opposes the new policy. Trump’s inner circles, Congress, and private industry have been trying to influence Trump’s final decision.
Smith of the MPP said SAM’s actions are “to spread this misinformation, and hide behind a hypothetical.”
“So I will not give them the satisfaction of calling them liars in print—but I will say very strongly that they and their funders should be ashamed of misleading the public in an effort to drag us back to the dark days of millions of arrests and ruined lives.”
Morgan Fox, the political director at NORML told MEDCAN24, that prohibitionists have “long relied on creative data interpretations to cast doubts on public support of cannabis policy reform.”
He said that it is no surprise they continue to use this tactic when they themselves are writing the questions. They try to create the illusion that they’ve won the support of the people, and they also work hard to remove voters from the picture by attempting to overturn or limit key elements of citizen initiatives.
Michael Bronstein of the American Trade Association of Cannabis and Hemp, told MEDCAN24 the questions in the poll were “clearly misleading”.
He said that independent polls consistently show Americans from all parties support reform of cannabis, which includes rescheduling.
A recent Emerson College poll found that two-thirds of American voters thought legalizing pot nationwide was a good idea.
Another recent survey from the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation (CPEAR), which was conducted by the firm Forbes Tate Partners, showed that seven in 10 American voters want to see the end of federal marijuana prohibition—and nearly half say they’d view the Trump administration more favorably if it took action on the issue.
A poll released in June that MEDCAN24 partnered on with the cannabis telehealth platform NuggMD showed that a majority of marijuana consumers disapprove of the Trump administration’s actions on cannabis policy to date, but there’s also a significant willingness among users to shift their position if the federal government opts to reschedule or legalize marijuana.
Earlier this year, meanwhile, a firm associated with Trump—Fabrizio, Lee & Associates—also polled Americans on a series of broader marijuana policy issues. Notably, it found that a majority of Republicans back cannabis rescheduling—and, notably, they’re even more supportive of allowing states to legalize marijuana without federal interference compared to the average voter.
Philip Steffan is the photographer.