By Tim Hermes, Publisher and Founder
MJ continues it's heady roll towards legalization, but what will be the event, legislation, or movement that will provide the true "Gladwell Moment" and really tip the US towards legal RMJ/MMJ?
Virginia.
Virginia, in population, geography and employment is truly a fascinating political study. With a staunchly conservative legislature at the state level due to gerrymandering, but a Democratic governor, and two Democratic senators on the hill, it's a state divided. As a Virginia resident, I like to think it as "far north as southerners will go and as far south as northerners will go." Virginia voted blue in the 2012 presidential race, and it's population and political environment is based in affluent and liberal Northern Virginia, which is comprised of roughly eight counties (including the largest and most influential, Fairfax county,) and the rest of the state, which is deep, deep red. Basically from Richmond south, you're really in the South.
But Virginia is also home to Big Tobacco (BT.)
Phillip Morris, the world's largest cigarette manufacturer is located in Richmond, and it's no secret that BT plans to jump into the MJ game soon. Which means a huge company with expertise in cultivation, packaging, testing, distribution, product consistency, quality control, and marketing will enter the field as an 800 lb. gorilla. BT also brings with it cachet and a sense of comfort - especially when consumers start to see their MJ in crisp boxes with cellophane wrap and a tax seal. But most important?
Lots of jobs for Virginia. And LOTS of tax revenue.
When PM decides to make this jump, they have the toolbox to get it done. Proximity to Richmond, heavy lobbying power, and thousands of employees, many in the Old Dominion. It also has in it's corner a heavier population density and increasing liberal base in the north. Overall, Virginia is now a blue state. And blue will go green.
Virginia has abundant farmland for outdoor cultivation, is geographically perfect (on the 95 corridor, dead-center of the east coast,) and is close to DC as well. For PM and other BT companies, the ability to offer more jobs, especially in the central part of the state, plus their infrastructure and profit potential could prove to be irresistible to PM's board. And the state treasury is drooling over the sales tax upside. After all, in the first six months of recreational MJ in Colorado, their coffers were padded by tens of millions.
And the "sell" wouldn't be that hard. In a true team of rivals, the liberal north want to see legal MJ both as an enjoyable vice, but also a way to lighten prison crowding. The Tea Party based in the rural parts of the state, particularly south and west of Richmond, sees this as a state issue, and not a federal one, and wants a hands-off policy towards matters like these. If the Fed continues to say it won't pursue state decisions legally that fly in the face of federal law, the door stays that much wider.
PM will bring their lobbying efforts at state/federal level, and marketing firepower to work to change perception here in the state. It will start, in my opinion, with decriminalization for small amounts, and decriminalization of MMJ. Once PM starts to see the revenue from MMJ, the snowball will start rolling downhill.
And then the tipping starts in the South. After Virginia? North Carolina, Kentucky, Florida within five to ten years. North Carolina has RJ Reynolds and a similar dynamic to Virgina. Kentucky has a poor populace with high unemployment and good land for MJ cultivation. Florida votes on MMJ in November. In Alabama, where "Carly's Law" to use cannabis oil for treating seizures in children has been passed. So the interest is already there. There will be a fight about it, and it won't be easy for BT to prevail. But they will. And when BT enters the game, the landscape will change drastically. After all the more states going legal, the bigger the market expands. And if we've seen anything, it's that demand is very high. So, let the fun begin.
The market demand will be there. The financial power exists and wth it comes leverage. The largest tobacco company in the world is based in-state. The northern suburbs are liberal, the governor is a Democrat, and overall attitudes are changing. Virginia may not legalize MMJ/RMJ soon, but once it does, it will prove a bellweather for other southern states to follow.
