The sponsor of a proposed ballot initiative to repeal recreational marijuana legalization in Arizona has abandoned the effort, saying he has “adjusted my viewpoints on the threat to kids.” Sean Noble told reporters that he is dropping his planned ballot measure, which would have repealed the 2020 initiative that legalized the possession, sale and use of cannabis by adults aged 21 and over.
Noble, the founder of the conservative organization American Encore, told Capitol Media Services that the legalization repeal initiative was not aimed at medical marijuana. Instead, the effort was focused on the legalization of recreational cannabis and perceived abuses by the industry, including the marketing of marijuana products to children.
“I went into it with a pretty profound belief that it was happening,” he said this week, although he admitted he did not have personal knowledge of improper marketing. “I was kind of relying on things that I had seen or read from other people.”
Initiative Sponsor Walks Back Assumptions
After looking into the matter further, however, Noble determined that that his assumptions about the regulated cannabis industry were incorrect, saying, “I’ve adjusted my viewpoints on the threat to kids.”
“They have not done some of the things that I thought they were doing,” he said of the Grand Canyon State’s cannabis brands and retailers.
“I don’t think that they’re specifically marketing gummies and candies and that kind of thing the way that I was led to believe that they were doing,” Noble continued. “Maybe they’re doing that in other states. But it’s not happening here in Arizona.”
Noble also acknowledged the political and economic challenges associated with repealing Arizona’s legalization of recreational marijuana. Proposition 207, the 2020 initiative that legalized recreational cannabis, was approved by a 3-2 margin. And policy changes at the federal level, including the Trump Administration’s rescheduling of medical marijuana, make walking back legalization a heavy lift.
The undertaking would also be expensive. Noble estimated it would take about $5 million to collect the signatures needed for the initiative to qualify for the November ballot. The campaign to push the ballot measure to success would cost another $10 million to $20 million.
Noble’s attempt to repeal cannabis legalization in Arizona wasn’t the only effort to roll back marijuana policy reform this year. A similar initiative is underway in Massachusetts, where a proposed ballot measure would repeal recreational marijuana legalization while allowing medical cannabis to remain legal. And in Oklahoma, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has called for lawmakers to repeal the state’s medical marijuana program, but GOP leaders in the legislature have indicated an unwillingness to do so.
Legal Weed Protects Kids
A common element to these proposals is a professed urgency to protect children from legal weed. But Adam J. Smith, executive director of the cannabis reform advocacy group Marijuana Policy Project, says that evidence indicates that regulating cannabis keeps young people safer.
“For decades, Prohibitionists have made hysterical claims that legal, regulated cannabis markets put kids at risk, but the facts, as Sean Noble notes, have not borne that out,” Smith writes in an electronic message. “According to the CDC, teen use is at or near its lowest point in 50 years, despite more than half of Americans now residing in legal states, and down in 19 of the 21 legal states for which we have data. And according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse’s Monitoring the Future survey, the number of 8th and 10th graders who say that cannabis is ‘easy’ or ‘fairly easy’ to obtain has been cut in half since states began legalizing adult use in 2012.”
Smith notes that legal cannabis is age-gated, requiring retailers to check a patron’s identification every time. And unlike unlicensed dealers who will often sell to anyone with the money to buy, the livelihoods of regulated licensees depend on preventing cannabis sales to kids. He also commends Noble for ending his repeal effort, noting that recent legislation further protects consumers and children with strict labeling requirements and a ban on marketing aimed at kids.
“Kudos to Sean Noble for taking a look at the facts before setting off to end adult use sales, pushing the AZ market back into the hands of illicit sellers,” he writes. “Licensed, regulated producers and retailers do NOT market to children, and as AZ’s recently passed law shows, must meet strict labeling and advertising requirements to avoid this.”
This article was originally published on Forbes.com