Who Is Big Weed?

04/20/21 • 46 min

Americans aren’t in agreement about much these days, but there does appear to be one thing that they overwhelmingly support: legalizing the medical and recreational use of cannabis. Across the country, cannabis is winning at the ballot box and in the statehouse, and whether you partake or not, legalization has major implications for civil rights and civil liberties, for social and racial justice, and, of course, for those who see cannabis as an enormous opportunity to make a lot of money. While federal legalization remains distant, how states legalize could play a significant role in determining the type of cannabis economy that may emerge in America. Will it be a market characterized by equity and competition--a small business success story--or a market dominated by politically influential corporate interests: Big Weed? On this episode of “Who Is?,” Sean Morrow takes a look at legalization and who stands to benefit from it.

Emily Dufton, a writer and historian. Her first book is “Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America”
Beau Kilmer, Director of the Drug Policy Research Center and McCauley Chair in Drug Policy Innovation at RAND
Majority Leader Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes, who represents District 141 in the New York State Assembly
Shaleen Title, Distinguished Cannabis Policy Practitioner in Residence at the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center of the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law

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Emily Dufton, a writer and historian. Her first book is “Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America”
Beau Kilmer, Director of the Drug Policy Research Center and McCauley Chair in Drug Policy Innovation at RAND
Majority Leader Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes, who represents District 141 in the New York State Assembly
Shaleen Title, Distinguished Cannabis Policy Practitioner in Residence at the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center of the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law

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Previous Episode

Who Is Deb Haaland?

In 1851, then Secretary of the Interior Alexander H.H. Stuart wrote the following: “What is to become of the aboriginal race? ... A temporary system can no longer be pursued. The policy of removal, except under peculiar circumstances, must necessarily be abandoned; and the only alternatives left are, to civilize or exterminate them.” In 2021, Congresswoman Deb Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo woman, was confirmed Secretary of the Interior. Haaland, a single mother who enrolled in college at 28 and would later experience homelessness, is a remarkable person--and politician--whose presence in the Biden Administration marks a profound assertion of Indigenous political power in the United States.

Julia Bernal, Alliance Director at the Pueblo Action Alliance
John Leshy, who has dedicated much of his career to America’s public lands and the laws that govern them, served as Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior throughout the Clinton Administration. His political history of public lands in the United States, “Our Common Ground,” will be published in late 2021 by Yale University Press
Jenni Monet, a journalist who writes about Indigenous Affairs

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Next Episode

Who Is Geoengineering?

Unless you’re lucky enough to live on another planet, you’ve probably heard about the climate crisis. It’s a problem we must address if we want humanity--and the rest of the Earth’s animal and plant population--to continue to survive and thrive. But in order for that surviving and thriving to happen, we must immediately and definitively cut emissions and begin the transition away from fossil fuels. How’s that going? As you’ve probably heard, not so well, and as a result, more radical approaches are increasingly in the mix. Geoengineering is one of these, and while it won’t solve the climate crisis, it may enable us to remove some of the carbon dioxide we’ve emitted and even artificially lower global temperatures while we detox from fossil fuels. The catch? We don’t really know what would happen if we did it, and we may not be able to undo it. On this episode of “Who Is?,” it’s a look at one of the big choices we may have to make in the not so distant future.

Elizabeth Kolbert, who has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1999. Her most recent book, “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future,” was published in February of 2021
Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G). Pasztor was previously United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Climate Change in New York under Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

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