National legalization of marijuana possession, production, and sale will provide politicians with another means of enrichment through corruption, warned Peter Schweizer on Friday, author of Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite and president of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI).
Schweizer and GAI colleague Eric Eggers spoke with Sean Hannity on the latter’s eponymous radio show to discuss the GAI’s newest report, “Cannabis Cronyism.”
Schweizer explained how state-level politicians and government officials in states with legalized cannabis use the regulatory apparatus — including the selling of cannabis licensing — to essentially extort companies seeking legal permission to enter the marijuana industry.
Schweizer remarked:
What’s happening in this these states [where marijuana is] being legalized [is that] the politicians — meaning, most times, the governors, sometimes other state cabinet officials — get to pick and choose who is the one that’s going to get the gold mine [and] that’s going to get a limited license in a controlled market and is going to be able to actually sell marijuana legally, and guess what?
By virtue the fact that they get to pick who gets the licenses, it’s not just the state governments who are going to make money, it’s actually the politicians themselves.
…
The people who are making the money are the politicians, the politicians’ family members, [and] lobbyists connected to the politicians. They’re all getting rich through this legalized scheme.
It’s not really about personal freedom. It’s not about medical marijuana. It’s about politicians finding yet another pocket in which they can enrich themselves.
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Eggers remarked on the mutual financial benefit between Democrat control of Congress and the White House and the marijuana industry. He said, “The marijuana industry is saying, ‘Hey now that the Democrats are in charge, we stand to do very well.’ The reality is as we’ve uncovered in this report is that actually Democrats do really well as a result of the marijuana industry itself.”
Eggers recalled a Politico report highlighting expectations of a financial windfall within the marijuana industry resulting from Democrat congressional majorities and a Democrat president.
Designation of marijuana dispensaries as “essential” across dozens of states amid assorted shutdown and stay-at-home decrees may be a function of the $21 billion cannabis industry’s lobbying efforts, Eggers speculated.