Panic.
It’s an emotion that’s good for business when it comes to the 24-hour news cycle.
There was the post-World-War-II Red Scare. Then you had the “Satanism via Dungeons and Dragons” panic of the 1980s. There’s always been something to keep the masses looking over their shoulders and glued to the TV.
Even today you can take your pick.
Longstanding classics like poisoned Halloween candy pop up every year. The War on Christmas never seems to truly end. It just enters an annual, months-long ceasefire.
Then you have the ones that seem to come and go.
Remember when some politicians were convinced that banning air travel to West Africa would stop the spread of Ebola?
Or that people dressed in clown costumes were going to kill us all in 2016?
It’s all right if you don’t. By the time these things hit their peaks, society had already moved on to jumping at some other shadow.
And sometimes those new panics are old panics dressed in a modern coating.
Reefer Madness Renewed
You’ve probably seen the recent chatter surrounding marijuana vaping along with talk about tighter regulation for the industry. In some cases, certain devices have been banned outright in reaction to the crisis.
As a quick recap, the electronic cigarette industry has been under a microscope lately. With reports of exploding devices and lung injuries experienced by people who vape, public health agencies are taking a close look at what needs to be done to reign the industry in.
Unlike a lot of panics, this is not completely without warrant.
So far, there have been just over 1,000 cases of vaping-related lung injuries in the U.S. and 18 deaths. In the eyes of the FDA, that’s enough to issue a warning that consumers should avoid THC vapes.
So we’re back to panicking about marijuana. But not in a way that suggests the drug will drive users to violent outbursts like we saw in the early 20th century.
Still, the number of vaping-related injuries has gotten to the level where industry leaders themselves have called for something to be done.
As a growing number of states legalize or decriminalize marijuana, leaders in the cannabis industry have banded together to urge Congress to deschedule the drug. While this will obviously help their businesses, doing so would also cut down on those injuries and deaths that have been dominating the news cycle.
That’s because it’s been reported that many of the products that are hurting users have been obtained illegally. This means counterfeit THC oil, synthetic marijuana, and counterfeit cartridges, among other items.
The situation involving vape pens/e-cigarettes is a complex one that doesn’t just affect the marijuana industry. But it’s important to look at how this specifically impacts the marijuana industry for our purposes.
As we’ve noted many times in these pages, marijuana is experiencing growing popularity in this country.
Some people use it for recreation. Some people use it medically, as an alternative to pills. Either way, it’s an industry that’s growing in influence. Still, because the drug isn’t legal on a federal level, the states where it’s been made legal are left to their own devices when it comes to the rules. This makes it hard to create and enforce a uniform policy that protects consumers from black-market products.
Marijuana industry leaders know it, and they want Congress to know it.
That’s why they’re pushing to get the drug descheduled on a federal level. Once that happens — and it will happen — it will be much easier to get everyone aligned as far as what’s allowed to reach the market. That will make it easier to crack down on the black market, and everyone wins.
Federal legalization would allow legitimate businesses to fully compete with, and likely displace, the black market. It would also likely shift responsibility related to quality control.
As it stands now, marijuana is under the authority of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Legalization might shift that authority to an office like the Food and Drug Administration. From there, common-sense standards could be put into place that would protect consumers while putting businesses on the same page with best practices.
Inside the Movement to Legalize
Taking advantage of the changes that are coming to the marijuana industry means gathering insider knowledge. Jimmy Mengel has been doing just that for years, and has insight into who the key players are.
With the information he’s collected, you can position yourself for profits as business and government work together to create policy that will only help this industry skyrocket in the years to come.
Don’t wait. It’s going to happen sooner than you might realize. You don’t want to miss your chance.
Keep your eyes open,
Ryan Stancil
Contributing Editor, Outsider Club
