Dear Friends of SAM,
As we enter 2022, and so many of us are not celebrating with our friends and family as we would in better times, I am especially grateful for you and your support. We are truly lucky to have built an organization with supporters like you, helping spread a message of hope and truth. Like I wrote in my Newsweek column last week, we really are the "little engine that could."
This past year has been a banner year for us, thanks to your support. You help us save lives. It’s as simple as that.
The SAFE Banking Act rejection was by far our biggest win on the federal level, but it wasn’t our only victory. Working with a bipartisan group of elected officials, we supported the inclusion of a provision in the bipartisan infrastructure law that allows for the research of state-sanctioned marijuana products, so their effects can be better understood. The Biden-Harris Administration has also implemented some of our research recommendations.
Every victory, every mind we change, every legislative victory is thanks to you.
In 2021, marijuana legalization stalled in 18 states. In Colorado, we worked with a large bipartisan coalition to pass the country's first regulatory legislation to restrict the state’s marijuana industry. In South Dakota, we witnessed the unconstitutional legalization ballot initiative be overturned after a year-long campaign against it. Several pro-marijuana incumbent candidates in Virginia and New Jersey lost their seats, demonstrating once again that marijuana is not a driver of votes at the polls. We also helped numerous localities stop pot shops.
Our legislative triumphs have been matched by progress in changing hearts and minds. Marking our 50th educational session of the year, last week we featured Tom Coderre, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Substance Use and Mental Health, and Dr. Leslie Walker-Harding, Chief Academic Officer and Senior Vice President for Seattle Children’s Hospital, in what was our most successful webinar ever, entitled Youth and Cannabis Use Disorder.
But our work is far from over. Big Pot continues to promote harmful policies across the nation. In several states, regulators are now allowing high levels of mold and other additives to be sold in legal weed. In some cities, marijuana taxes are being eliminated.
This year, the marijuana lobby has spent millions of dollars in its attempt to commercialize marijuana and create the next Big Tobacco. Thanks to support from friends like you, we stopped them.
Your donations to SAM allow us to counter these efforts head on… to push local, state and national legislative action, to work with grassroots organizations to educate people in their communities, to advocate for standards and evidence-based practices.
You help us reach communities, consumers and legislators with your message: do not allow the expansion of the addiction-for-profit marijuana industry in our neighborhoods.
If you said in 2020, “I’ll make a gift next year”… time is running out.
