The fight against legal marijuana is about big money, not public health.
By Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream
On TV and billboards, the fight against legalizing marijuana is about health, safe communities and our children’s future. But for Big Pharma and Big Tobacco — who fund these anti-marijuana efforts — it’s really about the bottom line. For years, large corporations and well-heeled lobbyists have blocked the legalization of marijuana for medical use or recreational use in order to protect their own profits.
Florida’s failed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana for medical use illustrates how money, and not morals, motivates this issue.
This year, the anti-amendment group, Drug Free Florida, spent millions on ads to get Floridians to believe medical marijuana was harmful even if it has repeatedly been proven to have many health benefits. It is ironic that the group ran ads implying children would be unsafe if Florida’s initiative passed when the group’s founder set up a drug rehab program shuttered after several allegations of false imprisonment, abuse and torture of children.
