Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) announced the rollout its Local Control Resource Center, the second wave of its initiative aiding communities looking to exert local control by banning commercial marijuana operations.
“Our ‘Towns and Cities Initiative’ arms local communities with the resources they need to keep their neighborhoods free of marijuana shops and large scale growing operations that normalize this addiction-for-profit industry,” said Dr. Kevin Sabet, president of SAM and a former senior drug policy advisor to the Obama Administration. “People living in a state that has either ‘legalized’ pot or is considering it should know they have the power to organize against Big Pot. Our Local Control Resource Center provides all the information needed to successfully accomplish this.”
As a part of its efforts to contain the spread of Big Marijuana’s corporate agenda, SAM has long aided local communities in local control efforts. In Michigan, more than 1,400 communities have opted out of legalization thanks in part to the continued effort of SAM-affiliate Healthy and Productive Michigan.
Most recently, the Illinois community of Highland voted down a ballot referendum to overturn a local ban on marijuana shops. Notably, the effort in Highland was included as part of the initial rollout of SAM’s “Towns and Cities Initiative.”
As it stands, the vast majority of communities in California, Colorado, and Michigan have banned marijuana industry activity, including storefronts, growing operations, public consumption sites, and delivery services. Many of these communities have utilized SAM’s resources to accomplish this.
Resources available on SAM’s Local Control Resource Center include:
- SAM’s Local Control Toolkit: “Using Local Control to Push Back on the Marijuana Industry”
- The comprehensive marijuana legalization impact report: “Lessons Learned from State Marijuana Legalization”
- Five comprehensive and easy to digest one-pager factsheets covering the effects of legalization in Colorado, the failures of the grand promises of sky-high marijuana revenues, the intersection of marijuana use and opioid abuse, and marijuana legalization’s social justice failures.
- Sample newspaper ads, mailers, and posters used from recent opt-out campaigns