[Payaso]

We're just asking for a little respect as business operators!

Like hip-hop, health food and snowboarding, marijuana is going corporate.

As more and more states allow medical use of the drug, and California considers outright legalization, marijuana’s supporters are pushing hard to burnish the image of pot by franchising dispensaries and building brands; establishing consulting, lobbying and law firms; setting up trade shows and a seminar circuit; and constructing a range of other marijuana-related businesses.

Boosters say it is all part of a concerted effort to trade the drug’s trippy, hippie counterculture past for what they believe will inevitably be a more buttoned-up future.

“I don’t possess a Nehru jacket, I’ve never grown a goatee, I’ve never grown my hair past the nape of my neck,” Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said. “And I don’t like patchouli.”

Steve DeAngelo, the president of CannBe — a marketing, lobbying and consulting firm here — will not even use the word “marijuana.” Calling it pejorative, he prefers the scientific term “cannabis.”

“We want to make it safe, seemly and responsible,” Mr. DeAngelo said of marijuana.

That extends to his main dispensary and headquarters, the Harborside Health Center in Oakland, with its bright fluorescent lights, a clean, spare design, and a raft of other services including chiropractic care and yoga classes. On a recent Friday, the center was packed, with a line of about 50 people waiting as the workers behind the counter walked other customers through the various buds, brownies and baked goods that were for sale.

“If we can’t demonstrate professionalism and legitimacy, we’re never going to gain the trust of our citizens,” Mr. DeAngelo said. “And without that trust, we’re never going to get where we need to go.”

The ultimate destination, for many supporters, is legalization. Californians will decide in November if that is where they want to go, when they vote on a ballot measure that would legalize, tax and regulate marijuana.

Regardless of the outcome, CannBe says it expects to expand its business model nationwide to become what admirers say will be “the McDonald’s of marijuana.”

The for-profit company is made up of four proprietors of nonprofit dispensaries and their lawyer. Mr. DeAngelo calls them an “A-team of cannabis professionals.”

In late March, it helped lobby the City Council in San Jose, the nation’s 10th-largest city, to pass ordinances regulating dispensaries, a crucial step toward a legitimate industry. And last week at a cannabis conference in Rhode Island, Mr. DeAngelo was diversifying his product line, introducing a kind of “pot lite” with less psychoactive agents than regular marijuana and thus popular with what he calls “cannabis-naïve patients.”

John Lovell, a California lobbyist who represents two major police groups that oppose legalization, scoffed at the notion that marijuana proponents were cleaning up their act or gaining traction with the public, citing a recent decision by the Los Angeles City Council to sharply curtail the number of medical marijuana dispensaries there.

“They are a neighborhood blight,” he said. “Here you have dispensaries that have cash and dope. So, duh? Is it any surprise that they’ve been magnets for crime?”

But advocates call that characterization unfair and outdated.
“This is an emerging business opportunity, as it would be in any other area,” said Ethan Nadelmann, the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which favors legalization.
In California, dispensaries already employ all manner of business gimmicks to survive in an increasingly competitive market. West Coast Cannabis, a trade magazine, has dozens of advertisements for daily specials, free samples, home delivery, gift certificates, scientific testimonials, yoga classes, hypnotherapy, Reiki sessions, coupons, recipes and, of course — being California — free parking.

There are also new schools and seminars that can be used as credit for required continuing education classes for doctors and lawyers.

That includes the Cannabis Law Institute, which was certified last month by the California state bar. It was co-founded by Omar Figueroa, a graduate of Yale University and Stanford law school, who is hosting a seminar in Sonoma County in June that promises to teach attendees about “this fascinating area of the law.”

Mr. Figueroa, who said he was voted “most likely to fail a Senate confirmation hearing” at Stanford, said he was earning a good living in marijuana law, but was in it for the experience. “My passion has always been cannabis,” he said. “It’s the world’s most interesting law job.”

For the full story visit this link.

[Joey Roastbeef]

Steve DeAngelo, the president of CannBe — a marketing, lobbying and consulting firm here — will not even use the word “marijuana.” Calling it pejorative, he prefers the scientific term “cannabis.”

I totally agree with this statement. i tend to correct people when they call it pot, weed or marijuana, with "cannabis". I usually get the odd pause and weird looks but they tend to get it after a while.

[GeorgeSmiley]

I make sure to try and only call it Herb, Cannabis or meds especially if discussing it around squares.

[Euphrates]

I hate Pot..... though I do love Cannabis

[johnnybhang]

Words and what they stand for are key to keeping our society intact. Part of the mechanism to keeping cannabis in the shadows for so long is labeling it marijuana, pot, dope. Like a snowball rolling down the hill the more people call it cannabis or medical cannabis the more it the term will stick. Out with the negative associative words and in with positive associative words. The effect can be staggering when just a few people in a few places constantly use a word in conversation.

[basspirate]

I'm not a pothead; I'm a cannaphile.

[Kalicokitty]

John Lovell, a California lobbyist who represents two major police groups that oppose legalization, scoffed at the notion that marijuana proponents were cleaning up their act or gaining traction with the public, citing a recent decision by the Los Angeles City Council to sharply curtail the number of medical marijuana dispensaries there.

“They are a neighborhood blight,” he said. “Here you have dispensaries that have cash and dope. So, duh? Is it any surprise that they’ve been magnets for crime?”

I will be soooooo haaappppyyyy to hear about all the pigs getting laid off when things change.
Their qoute about dispensaries? You can say the same thing about liqour stores
When the laid off police try to find jobs in the Cannabis industry(security guards, drivers, etc..) they need to be shunned, ordered off the premises of the dispensaries when they show up looking for jobs, F them, war criminals is what they are, trying their hardest to stop legalization and roll back MMJ just for their own selfish interests and nothing more.

Great article, looking forward to the time when we can be open, successful, proud members of the mainstream business community

[TexasToker]

I really agree.

'Marijuana' was used and still is used as a derogatory termed coined from the Mexican's when Cannabis was used as a stigma in society. Pot is just slang that is now the new stigma. I loathe when people call it dope though.

My friends giggle when I call it Cannabis.

[nomaad]

I agree that the image of our industry is changing, but we must BEWARE the consolidation efforts that are going down.

CannBe helped successfully "lobby" San Jose to impose regulations on dispensaries... what came out of that? Harborside North. We must understand that "lobbying" means playing the dark side of politics, the CASH side rather than the PEOPLE side of the democratic process. The group of 4 businessmen that own dispensaries are the Gang of Four... they are the only four dispensaries in the city of Oakland... they lobbied for the ordinance that locked them in control and they are now attempting to WRITE THE LAWS that will govern legalization.

I have kept my mouth shut about it till recently because I am a man who tries to wait for a clear understanding of intentions before taking a stance against... But its clear... its obvious. The Gang of Four and their monopolist agenda is not the future I would hope for for the cannabis industry.

I'll say again, as I try to state in all my other posts, I don't think Harborside is a bad model for urban dispensaries. I make no comment whatsoever on that.

[johnnybhang]

Stockton is undergoing much the same gang mentality as Oakland has with thier gang of four. Right now city staffers are writing up the ordinance rules that will control the gang of 3 that will soon control stocktons dispensary scene. Its totally shady and anyone that reads between the lines sees who were the ones that lobbyed the city to lock down the disp scene. But hey most people are happy that in stockton they even have a dispensary right? Dispensaries should be like pharmacys, its about not having to drive clear across town. Its about convienience not about giving the local power crowd a monopoly on dispensaries. But hey there are ways around it, how about collecting signatures and getting these bass ackwards ordinances overturned? They only way around it is for more pro cannabis people to speak up at town meetings or write in to their local papers. These power brokers have the illusion they are running things but we all know thats a lie.