“CPEAR’s poll is a thinly veiled try to persuade decision-makers to steer a popular issue into a less popular path.”
By Damian Fagon, Parabola Center
R.J. Reynolds poured millions in 1994 to a secret coalition called Get Government Off OurBack. It was a simple mission: pretend to be a grass-roots movement that opposed regulation in order to keep the Food and Drug Administration away from cigarettes. In the last three decades, cannabis has also been influenced by a playbook that is similar.
Today, Altria, parent company of Marlboro, has poured $1.8 Billion into Cronos, the cannabis-firm. CPEAR published a survey earlier this month that proclaimed a popular mandate for the STATES 1.0 Act. This bill would adopt a “states rights” approach towards marijuana. Let’s put aside patriotic headlines, and let the numbers tell a completely different story. This survey is designed to manipulate public opinion rather than record it.
The message is the messenger
CPEAR does not represent a think-tank that is neutral. This is an Altria-funded front group.
Forbes Tate Partners also acts as an Altria registered lobbyist. Both the pollster and the sponsor work together.
By accepting the data at face-value, we are ignoring the fact that they and the intended outcome have the same office address.
An Integrated Framework to Consolidate
The cynical nature of CPEAR’s preferred bill, STATES2.0, is in the things it does not: expunge criminal records; protect workers’ rights for cannabis, and prevent deportations related to marijuana. It also doesn’t take responsibility for any harms that have been caused by the drug war. The 50 states competing for investments will do so on the terms most “business-friendly”.
Conglomerates and operators with deep pockets will move to jurisdictions that have low taxes and low oversight, and monopolize the supply chain and swallow up smaller competitors. The same economic logic has worked for alcohol and tobacco before, and it will work again with cannabis.
Each law that we pass will have an impact on the future economy of Americans. The STATES 2.0 act would consolidate the industry and make mom-and pop operators compete for scraps.
Congress could choose to take a more positive course, insisting that a framework for legalization be established that will clear up records, protect state regulations and channel investment into the communities who paid the most under prohibition. Any less is legalization under a different name.
Persuasion By Design
CPEAR’s poll represents a thinly veiled effort to convince policymakers to move a widely popular issue into a direction that is less popular. STATES 2.0 is framed in terms of state’s rights to appeal to conservative voters. It does not address relevant issues such as record expungement or equity for small businesses.
The poll simplifies the complex issue of legalization and justice reform by excluding alternatives like the MORE Act that combine them. A majority of Americans support this combination.
The final question is designed to give the impression that CPEAR has chosen a successful political bill by asking people how they would react if a candidate for Congress or Trump’s administration supported marijuana reform. But it’s not.
Numbers that Say It All
It is clear that the data from this poll has a serious flaw. The STATES 2.0 model shows that despite the general 70 percent support for legalization at the federal level, the enthusiasm of respondents drops down to low 60s.
Won’t it be reasonable to expect that a federal bill on marijuana would garner as much support than marijuana legalization in general? STATES 2.0’s supporters have conducted a survey that shows it is not as popular as the issue the bill claims to support.
And the news for their favored politicians is even worse—despite CPEAR’s creative description of a “near majority” being more likely to support a pro-cannabis candidate, the big takeaway is that the actual majority would not be more likely to support a pro-cannabis candidate. Can we really blame the tobacco and alcohol companies for leading this lobbying effort?
The numbers don’t tell us anything else.
This report is based on an online survey of only 2,051 people, which lacks transparency and makes it difficult to replicate or verify. The report relies on a low-transparency online poll of 2,051 respondents and omits key disclosures that make it impossible to verify or replicate.
In refusing to release these results, as well as the weighting method that is considered essential by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, pollsters tell Congress, and those who vote, they should trust them. Why should anyone trust them given their obvious conflict of interests?
Damian Fagon was a New York cannabis regulator and is now the Executive Leadership Fellow at Parabola Center for Law and Policy.
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