I don’t mean literally everyone, of course. There are some folks who are intrigued by what cannabis presents, and are interested in studying what cannabis is with an open mind.
In general, however, after a decade of legal recreational use of cannabis in dozens of states, almost no one takes cannabis seriously, in the government or in many cannabis businesses. Rather than see it as the peculiar plant that it is, with wide variety of uses and therapies, governments and business see it as New Booze or the New Medicine, and try to treat it as such.
We have industries and governments treating “cannabis” and “hemp” as if they are distinct plants. This is an unserious distinction, and the ensuing decade of hemp-based cannabinoid products has rendered the labels a mockery. The “two different plants” have even established political coalitions in legislatures, and battle lines have been drawn over a nonsensical concept.
We have operators who act like Consumer Product Good manufacturers, floating to wherever the regulations are weakest. Companies that used to work with licensed cannabis cultivators have left the adult-use states and set up shops in “hemp” jurisdictions. On an individual level, you can’t blame a business for seeking to get out of the red, but it comes at the cost of clarity about the cannabis plant, the products they sell, and the quality they promise.
We have policymakers across the country who do not know the first thing about cannabis, but who know (i) it can bring the local governments some revenue, and (ii) it should be treated like alcohol, and taxed like it. Most policymakers see the cannabis industry as a vice or luxury goods business, and have little patience for complaints about regulations– they see all of it as a privilege they, the policymakers, gave to the public.
Most policymakers also refuse to take seriously the idea that the “US Government is incapable of controlling cannabis production”, even though we spent decades and billions of dollars trying to do just that. They act as if the government has a capacity it never has had, and that the question is just one of the policymakers fiddling around with new privileges and punishments to bring the industry into line.
We will have over a decade of licensed cannabis markets, and almost all of them have withered every person who’s stayed in the game. The functional tax rates are exorbitant, and there is little serious interest in fixing them. There has been roughly 1000x more interest and movement in “fixing” cryptocurrency regulations over the past decade than there has been for fixing federal laws to allow state-compliant cannabis businesses access to standard business services and tax deductions. The policymakers take cryptocurrency far more seriously than cannabis.
And finally, plenty of consumers don’t take cannabis seriously either. They see it as an alternative to booze, and relentlessly search for THC numbers that have little to do with the high one receives. They slam down poor-regulated products with abandon, and think claims about quality or safety are not important. They’ll take cannabis in any form they can get.
I don’t know if the lack of seriousness will go away. I hope it does. Cannabis is a supremely interesting plant, and has loads of applications and opportunities. But until we take cannabis seriously— as a consumable, a commodity, a medicine, a flower, a textile — we will stay in these messes.