Marijuana Moment reports
A coalition of marijuana businesses and advocacy groups has launched a new super PAC that will work to “raise the profile of cannabis as a national issue in the 2024 election and beyond.” And part of the strategy will involve finding industry partners to ask their customers to make “round-up” donations at the point of sale when shopping at dispensaries.
The U.S. Cannabis Council (USCC) announced on Wednesday that it and its member businesses have formed the “Legalize America” super PAC, which unlike traditional political action committees can accept contributions of any size but cannot directly coordinate with political candidates.
“Legalize America is committed to ending cannabis prohibition and advancing expungement efforts and responsible use,” Legalize America Chair Matt Harrell of Curaleaf said in a press release. “We will use all available tools—including scorecards, endorsements and targeted independent expenditure campaigns—to advance cannabis reform, with the goal of creating a prosperous and equitable cannabis industry.”
Despite public support for ending marijuana prohibition, the coalition says that Congress “is stuck in the past,” so the super PAC “will help speed up the nation’s transformation on cannabis reform.”
It will seek to achieve that goal through a combination of partnerships with “high-profile public figures and brands,” and will also look into working with cannabis stakeholders to see if they’d be willing to give customers an option to “round up” their purchases, with the extra change going to the campaign as donations.
“We believe the 2024 presidential election will be a pivotal moment in the fight to end cannabis prohibition,” said Legalize America Secretary Pete Meachum of Cronos Group. “We are laying the groundwork now to use advertising, grassroots engagement, voter outreach and events to keep cannabis front and center throughout the campaign.”
While Legalize America said in a press release that it is the “first” focused super PAC in the U.S. focused on reforming cannabis laws, the owners of a California-based mobile cannabis dispensaries did file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in 2013 to create a entity called the Legalize Marijuana Super PAC.com. It doesn’t appear, however, that the effort reported raising or distributing any funds following its launch.
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Sean Hocking
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