A good way to gauge where things stand in the marijuana legalization wars a week before Election Day is to follow the money. And the latest polls, of course.
There are limitations to this approach. Trying to predict the outcome of an election by polling a week or less before the voting ends is a lot like trying to predict how a road trip is going to end by looking out the back window of the car. Ditto with following the money. The financial disclosure reports published, say, 10 days before Election Day don’t tell you how much will be contributed and spent before the polls close.
That said, here’s how things stood about a week ago.
According to an October 26 story in the Washington Post, the biggest contributor to the anti-marijuana legalization effort is — as expected — casino owner Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson has contributed $2 million to fight Nevada’s legalization initiative, $500,000 to the Arizona anti-legalization initiative, $1 million to the anti-pot effort in Massachusetts, and $1 million to fight the medical marijuana legalization measure in Florida.
Chances are he’s not done giving.
But there’s one vote no campaign he hasn’t contributed to: California’s. That’s probably because the pro-legalization side has out-raised the opponents by roughly 10 to 1, and the legalization initiative, Proposition 64, has maintained a double-digit lead in the polls.
The largest contributor to the Prop 64 campaign is Sean Parker, Napster founder and the first president of Facebook. He’s directed at least $8.8 million toward the effort.
The biggest contributor to the anti-Prop 64 effort in California is Julie Schauer, a retired east- coast art professor, who gave $1.4 million to SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana), the anti-legalization group founded by former Congressman and recovering poly-substance abuser Patrick Kennedy. Her contribution was intended to oppose legalization in three states, with most going to California.
The Nevada anti-legalization effort is also getting financial support from some of Adelson’s fellow casino magnates. South Point Hotel Casino and Spa, MGM Resorts International and Boyd Gaming are listed among the top five contributors.
In Arizona, two contributors to the anti-effort other than Adelson stand out: Insys Therapeutics, a pain-killer manufacturer that’s developing a drug based on a synthetic version of THC, gave $500,000, and Discount Tire, a Nevada-based business, kicked in $1 million.
In addition to the Marijuana Policy Project and other pro-legalization groups, financial support for legalization in both Nevada and Arizona is coming from medical marijuana business interests.
Perhaps the most interesting heavy hitter in an anti-legalization effort is the Archdiocese of Boston, which poured $850,000 into the anti-legalization campaign in Massachusetts last week.
The sudden entry of the Archdiocese, whose contribution represents a 50-percent increase in the anti-legalization war chest, may reflect the fact that while polling in Massachusetts shows pro-legalization leading 49-42 percent (according to a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released a week ago), support is down from an earlier poll that showed it with a 15 point lead.
Just guessing here, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the Archdiocese had a behind-the-scenes role in getting Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh to organize opposition to the legalization initiative in the first place.
Legalization in Massachusetts seems a close run, but the relatively low 42 percent opposed number suggests it has a reasonable chance of prevailing.
Adelson’s $1 million bet in Florida doesn’t seem to be buying the anti-campaign a lot of traction. A poll released early last week showed support for legalizing medical marijuana in Florida at 71 percent. The initiative, in the form of a state constitutional amendment, needs 60 percent to pass.
The opposition’s best shot at killing a legalization initiative is in Arizona, where a mid-October poll by independent pollster Data Orbital showed Prop 205, the legalization initiatve, trailing by a 44-45 percent margin. Since support for initiatives tends to fall off closer to the election, legalization in Arizona is in trouble.
The situation in Nevada is a bit better —Proposition 2 is leading 47-43 percent, with a 3 percent drop in opposition from a month earlier. But passage is still a touch-and-go deal.
Maine is the one state where legalization hasn’t stirred up much opposition. Pro-legalization forces have raised $1.3 million to the anti-camp’s $79,000, and the initiative was leading by 9 points in a poll conducted last week. With only 40 percent opposed, legalization in Maine seems likely to pass.
These anti-pot, pro-business groups always grouse about spending money on education, then they throw a million here and a million there to defeat legalized cannabis. Makes ya wonder.
I came across this article while trying to Google who Paul Danish’s biggest contributors are, something that seemingly has been erased or obscured from the web. How about it, Paul? Are you willing to post in a verifiable way where all your advertising money is coming from? Oil and gas industry? (You are much more open to fracking in Boulder County than your opponent). The Colorado Cannabis industry? You have to demagogically painted your opponent as anti marijuana, a complete mischaracterisation. The Realtors? The GMO based agriculture lobby? It would be journalistically responsible to put a disclosure in your article. The Boulder Weekly would do well to require such a disclosure from its candidate/columnists, especially ones that are running an office that will be regulating these industries. Reminds me of Fox News and their Orwellian motto “Fair and Balanced”! Nor have I found anywhere in the Daily Camera, which incredibly has endorsed you, or the Colorado weekly where your considerable advertising budget is coming from.
Great summary, and pretty much the way I see things too. I didn’t see a poll in Maine that high. They appear to around 53%. They haven’t raised a lot of money but they have a very active SAM chapter. With state cuts in social workers they have formed a sort of SAM union where they are seeking funding for a new court ordered rehab cashbox. You know you have a really crappy business when your customers have to be ordered by a court to buy your product.
That really is Adelson’s angle too. If his wife’s investment have anything to do with him, then he owns more low quality, recession proof, court ordered counseling coops than anyone in American. Then you have his best friend Mel Sembler on the East Coast with the same investments.
We know that Gallup annual poll hit 60 percent this year, and Pew is at 57% for legal marijuana. It’s just a lot easier to sell fear than change. In all of these financial disclosures we have yet to place a value on the “No” assets that aren’t on any PAC sheet. How do you measure the value of a Governor, or Mayor reading a script written by Mel Sembler, which is crafted propaganda. They have the Sheriffs Association nationwide, sending members up in uniform to read the same scripts.
I haven’t seen anyone put a value on any of these intangibles yet, but the opposition definitely has more. They basically have almost the entire government on their side. We all know there is not test of truth going on over at SAM. Kevin Sabet celebrates things like a court holding up a ballot so that the people don’t even get to decide. He acts like he’s playing game that isn’t real and doesn’t really affect the whole country.
SAM was founded by Mel Sembler as we can see Mel gave he for 100k and hired Sabet. Mel is still the guy raising he money. Sabet has not been effective in fund raising for SAM. You know his father changed his las name to Sabet now too, so you can find him with a chain of court ordered rehab clinics in Ohio with plans to branch out to other states and franchise opportunities may be available.
The business and industry of prohibition dwarfs the size of the actual marijuana economy. The ACLU put out a report last month that says over half of all arrests in America in 2015, were still prohibition offenses. Even after all this reform. Half of all arrests, means half of all court time, half of all law enforcement. Look at the DOJ budget and we have a clearer understand of many billions of dollars at stake. You can make a profit in a private prison, if you have a bunch of criminal in there. Keep them at state. Criminal require more security, more medical attention, more of everything. The profit is in your low level offenders.
Big Pharma isn’t paying all the police unions off. They have their own separate vested interest. Let’s not even get into the billions of dollars in seized assets that are sold off before people have even gone to court. Billions of dollars compared to Sean Parker’s millions. He’s David against Goliath and we are damn lucky to have Americans like him still around.
Meanwhile Adelson sit up in their ivory towers making money off of Adelson’s casinos and their court orderer rehab joints. Just a couple of evil old guys still trying to rule the world over the age of 80. What those two sad old men are trying to fight for is their legacy. They are already dead and they know it. The concern is how they will look on the other side of this prohibition that has done so much harm.
Meanwhile Adelson is invested in medical marijuana labs in Israel and has been for at least a decade.
The AG is dumb and dishonest. Surely
when she talks about Colorado, she is aware that in two polls (Denver
Post) its voters were asked “Would you vote to legalize all over again?”
Both had resounding “yes” numbers ( near 60%).
I’ve
served as an elected District Attorney in Conservative Texas. Every DA
is on a limited budget. We have to make choices. I believe in strict
punishment for violent offenders and burglars. I rarely gave probation.
Unfortunately we had to deal with all these annoying pot cases. Even
when pot users got probation the understaffed probation officers had
to make sure they were in by 10PM – I’d rather they checked on sex
offenders.]
Revenues are another reason to legalize. The
Washington Post reports for 2015 Colorado gained 18,000 pot-related
jobs and $2.4 billion in revenue. 2016 will be much better.
Use among teens has not increased both according to surveys from the Denver Post and Federal Government.
Too bad marijuana isn’t actually LEGAL anywhere in the U$A.