CANNA Q & A PU BLIC OFFIC IA L
Q&A with Geneviéve Jones-Wright Candidate for District Attorney’s Office
coffers, and lose the ability to properly regulate and monitor for public health and safety hazards. The black market pot shop doesn’t pay taxes or get tested for pesticides, and they don’t pay their fair share into our system. Those are just some of the drawbacks of not having proper legalization implementation.
What are some of the main concerns or problems that you are currently encountering concerning cannabis within your community? The County Board of Supervisors has banned new cannabis businesses (both medical and recreational) and decided to phase out old ones in unincorporated parts of the county. This has put the implementation of cannabis policy at odds with the democratically voted will of the people. My concern is that our government is spending too much time and too many resources trying to fight the medical and recreational use of marijuana instead of working on proper implementation of cannabis policy, including public safety and public health regulations.
What do you know, about cannabis, legislation, politics, etc. that you wish the SD public knew? As to cannabis in general, if the public knew the many benefits of cannabis and its byproducts, we would see less of an opposition to its legalization by certain segments of society who are uninformed. Research and studies have shown that cannabis has several health benefits. This directly ties into legislation and the politics behind the debate about the legalization of marijuana, and more specifically, big pharma groups. There is reliable data that medical cannabis patients are substituting cannabis for pharmaceuticals at a very high rate. There’s the rub: Big pharma is being hit in their pockets as a result of the legalization of medical marijuana. Compared to states that have not legalized marijuana, opiate overdoses have decreased by 25% in states with legalized marijuana. We are seeing that it is likely that individuals are using medical marijuana to alleviate pain rather than opioid painkillers or are using opiates in lower doses because of the use of medical marijuana. And that leads to politics. We will start to see a change in cannabis-related policy and legislation once big pharma starts to make their way into the industry. (And believe me, it’s coming.)
Describe some of the negatives that our community will experience without proper legalization implementation? To start, I wish people understood just how much thought, time, research, and expertise goes into creating and implementing cannabis policy. With that being said, without proper implementation you allow the black market to continue to thrive, miss out on the business tax and tourism money that could go into county 32
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