What commercialization is doing to cannabis

In 2012, Colorado legalized cannabis and added to what has fast become a multibillion-dollar global industry for all things weed-related: from vape pens to brownies and beyond. But to say that we’ve legalized marijuana is subtly misleading -- what we’ve really done is commercialize THC, says educator Ben Cort, and that’s led to a much more potent product. In an eye-opening talk, Cort examines the often unseen impacts of the commercial cannabis industry -- and calls on us to question those who are getting rich off of it.

Hey look, if you guys
are anything like me,

you have found it harder and harder
to turn around recently

without seeing words like "free-range,"

"farm-to-table,"

"organically produced,"

especially here in Colorado.

Now, as we've become more conscientious
of the way that we eat in recent years,

these once unfamiliar words have worked
their way into our daily lexicon.

When we started to pay more attention

to the way that the food we were eating
interacted with our bodies

and with the earth,

the food industry had to listen.

And the results have been really powerful.

Now, those of you out there
from states like Washington and Oregon

and, of course, my fellow Coloradans --

(Cheers)

y'all know what I'm talking about.

Because this is not ...

Words like "all-natural" and "homegrown"
are not just being used in our diets.

There's this whole new industry
using this language now.

You guys know.

It's weed,

an industry that taxed a sale

of about six billion dollars
worth of product in 2016.

So what if I were to propose to you

that some of what you think you know
about this legalized marijuana thing

could be wrong?

Listen, I get it --

talking about issues with legal weed
is a pretty quick way to get uninvited

from the cool kids' table.

I know that better than most,

but I intend to do it anyway.

First, before I get started, let me
be perfectly clear about one thing:

my fight is not against the casual
adult use of marijuana --

I don't care about that.

What I care deeply about
is this new industry

that is working to convince us
that we are consuming something natural

while fixing social ills,

when we aren't.

So let's start with
a little bit of Weed 101.

Cannabis is a plant that grows naturally
and has been used within textiles

and even traditional Chinese medicine
for thousands of years.

Genesis 1:12 even tells us:

"I have given you all of the seed-bearing
plants and herbs to use."

It's the microphone -- it's got
a TV preacher sort of thing.

(Laughter)

Now, cannabis is made up of hundreds
of different chemicals,

but two of those chemicals
are by far the most interesting.

That's CBD and THC.

CBD is where almost all
of the medicinal properties lie.

It's an incredibly fascinating
part of the plant

with real potential to help people.

It also is totally nonintoxicating.

You could take a bath in the stuff
while vaping pure CBD

and drinking a CBD smoothie,

and you still couldn't get high.

(Laughter)

I've tried.

(Laughter)

I haven't, I haven't.

That'd cost a lot of money.

(Laughter)

Now, for as interesting and remarkable
a part of the plant as CBD is,

it actually makes up a really tiny portion
of the commercial market.

The real money is being made
in that other chemical --

in THC.

THC is the natural part of the plant
that gets you high.

And before the 1970s,

cannabis contained less than half
of a percent of THC.

That's what's naturally occurring.

Over the last 40 years,
as we became better gardeners, that --

(Laughter)

that percentage of THC started
to slowly but steadily rise,

until recently, when the chemists
started to get involved.

So these guys moved grow cycles --

sorry -- these guys moved cultivation
exclusively indoors,

and they made grow cycles
extremely and unnaturally short.

They also started to use
pesticides and fertilizers

in some ways that we
should be concerned with.

In fact, I was recently talking to a buddy

who had just left a job
at a commercial grow operation

because he was so concerned
with the chemicals

that he was being asked to interact with.

Some of his fellow employees
were actually encouraged

to wear hazmat suits

while they were spraying
the chemical cocktails on the plants.

With that kind of manipulation,

the products that are being sold today
can contain above 30 percent THC.

And our concentrates --

our concentrates can actually contain
above 95 percent THC --

a far cry from the natural plant.

Listen, this isn't your grandpa's weed.

(Laughter)

This isn't your dad's weed.

Like, this isn't even my weed.

(Laughter)

If you've ever set foot inside
one of the thousands of dispensaries

that have sprung up in recent years,

you know that what we're
really selling in them is THC.

All of the weed that you buy commercially
lists exactly how much THC it contains,

as do our other,
much more popular products

like vape pens, coffee, ice cream,

condiments, granola, gum, candy,

baked goods,

suppositories.

(Laughter)

And, of course, lube.

Pretty much -- no, for real --

(Laughter)

pretty much anything that you can imagine
introducing into the human body.

The vast majority of cannabis
that's being sold today --

it isn't really cannabis.

It's THC in either a pure form

or in an extremely high
and unnatural concentration.

To say that we have legalized weed
is subtly misleading.

We have commercialized THC.

And it's happened really quickly.

Now, the reason why the commercial market
has so rapidly exploded

is because there is a hell
of a lot of money to be made

in satisfying and increasing
our desire to get high.

And that money is no longer really
being made by the mom-and-pop shops.

So industry groups and corporations --

groups like the Drug Policy Alliance,

the Marijuana Policy Project,

Arcview Investment,

the Cannabis Industry Association --

they've chased out and helped to chase out
a lot of the small-time growers.

So these cats know that the best way
to continue to profit off of us

is if they follow the alcohol
industry's 80/20 rule.

It's simple -- it's where 80 percent
of the product is consumed

by 20 percent of the consumers --
the problemed users.

The wealthy, white, weed lobbyists --

and seriously, they are almost
all rich, white men --

they know that we will consume
more of what they're selling

if they jack up the potency.

They also know that we are more than
twice as likely to consume THC regularly

if we earn under 20,000 dollars a year

than those who earn
over 50,000 dollars a year.

In other words, the poorer you are,

the more likely you are to spend
your money on their products.

And in this country, income
and race are highly correlated.

One of the reasons we often hear cited
for the legalization of marijuana

is that it will help to stop
the disproportionate incarceration rates

among minorities,

which is something everybody in this room
should be extremely concerned with.

Unfortunately, we don't
have to look any further

than arrest rates for juveniles
here in Colorado

to counter that argument.

According to the Colorado
Department of Public Safety,

since we opened retail in 2014 --

almost all of which are in poor,
minority neighborhoods --

we saw an eight percent reduction
in the arrest of white kids

for all weed-related activity.

Good on 'em.

During that same time period,

there was a 29 percent increase
in the arrest of Hispanic kids

for weed-related activity

and a 58 percent increase in the arrest
of black kids for weed-related crimes.

You guys heard that, right?

We are actually arresting
more people of color in Colorado

than we were prior to commercialization.

And you're not reading that in the Post.

Colorado Department of Safety.

Legal marijuana coming into focus.

Another big issue that we have
is in school suspension rates.

So, schools that are
predominantly white --

that is, they have a minority population
of 25 percent or fewer --

in the first full year of data collection
following commercialization,

these schools had a grand total
of 190 drug-related suspensions,

almost all of which are for THC.

At the same time,

schools with a minority population
of 75 to 100 percent

had 801 drug-related suspensions,

almost all of which were for THC.

When discussing minority populations,

one that unfortunately often
gets left out of the conversation

is the LGBTQ community.

Members of this community are more
than twice as likely to consume THC

than those who identify
as heterosexual or cisgender.

They also, unfortunately, have
higher rates of mental illness

and suicide.

According to a study published in 2014
called "Going to Pot,"

we see that the unnaturally high levels
of THC found in today's products

actually compound those issues.

They make them worse.

Unfortunately, that seems
to matter very little

to the folks who are
selling these products,

because as you just saw,

clearly, this is a good consumer base.

Listen, man -- I get it.

In many circles, legalized marijuana
is too much of a sacred cow to question.

But we need to start this conversation,

because what's being sold today
is not natural,

and lobbyists and industry are using
social justice as a smoke screen

so that they can get richer.

It's been my own journey to sobriety
that led me to begin questioning

a lot of what I was seeing;

that's kind of one of the things
that we're taught to do.

When I left Boulder
for the Washington, DC, area

at 12 years old,

I was transported into a world
where the kind of shoes you wore

mattered more than
just about anything else.

And my family was just too poor
to help me play that game.

So I was faced with a pretty real
crisis of identity.

In this new scene where there's more
blacktop than treetops,

man, I just didn't know who I was.

So I smoked weed for the first time

when I was 13.

And I loved it.

(Laughter)

I instantly found this social group,

and I also just really liked being high.

I finally found a way to shut this up.

I quickly turned to other
drugs and alcohol,

and something just woke up
inside of my brain.

I was a daily user
within a couple of months.

My addictive use mirrors
many of the stories

that I'm sure you've heard before.

It started out as fun,

it got scary,

and then it was just necessary.

Enough said.

I got wasted for the last time
on June 15 of 1996.

And I --

(Applause and cheers)

Thank you.

And I've spent the last 21 years
trying to both put my life back in order

as well as trying to find
some peace in this world.

And one of the ways I've done that

is by working inside of nonprofit
drug and alcohol treatment

for the last 10 years,

with groups like Phoenix Multisport,

the University of Colorado Hospital

and NALGAP --

the National Association for Lesbian, Gay,
Transgender, Bisexual Treatment Providers

and their Allies.

Even after all of my work
on the front lines

and as a former consumer myself,

I was shocked and pissed
when I started to see

what commercialization
was doing to cannabis,

because, you see, our hope
for something pure and natural

is making it hard for us to see
what's really going on,

and that is that the rich
are getting richer

on the backs of the poor

and lying to our faces the entire time.

(Applause)

Thank you.

My friends, once again I fear
that we are allowing industry

to take advantage of the most
challenged among us

in order to turn a profit,

much like we saw with tobacco
and food in years past.

So when we told the food industry

that we understood the impact
our choices were having,

and that we demanded better
for ourselves and our families,

that industry got into line.

So is there any reason why we couldn't
demand the same thing from this

and from future industries who are trying
to get a piece of our paychecks?

What if we made these guys answer
some hard questions?

What if we held them to a higher standard
than we are right now?

Because as it stands,

for many in our community,

the grass isn't greener on this side
of commercialization.

They've just been sold a bag of goods.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Jeremy Duhon: I know
this is a sensitive topic

but a very important one,

so thank you for bringing this up
and helping us explore it.

You know, a lot of folks
are experiencing health benefits

from marijuana and cannabis.

What would you say
to that part of the community?

Ben Cort: I'm actually glad
you brought that up.

I think one of the most important things
that we can do right now

is to separate out medicinal,

and especially what's happening

and some of the advances
that are being made

using parts of this plant and even
some whole-plant medicines,

from the commercial market for THC.

That's, I think, crucial.

We've got to stop putting them together,

and we've got to say, "OK, here's
the part about getting high,

and here's the part about the medicine."

(Applause)

JD: So it sounds like your talk
is less about being anti-cannabis

and more about raising awareness
about aspects of commercialization.

Is that a fair way to put it?

BC: Yes. So, I am not the anti-weed guy.

(Laughter)

I'm the pro-logic guy.

For me to cast stones --
listen, I'm a drug addict.

I don't get to do that,
and I don't want to do that.

But what's bothering me
and what's so hard for me

is to see the way
that we are just embracing

without asking the hard questions,

when if this was another industry,

we'd be holding their feet
to the fire on some stuff.

And no, I'm not the anti-weed guy,

I'm the pro-thought guy.

So: think.

I don't even care
if you're smoking when you do it,

just so long as you're an adult.

So long as you're an adult,

just think.

(Applause)