A new anti-marijuana campaign paid for with $2 million in Colorado state tax funds this week drew backlash from the state’s cannabis industry, including University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, who also owns Denver-based dispensary Simply Pure.
James said in a LinkedIn post on Monday that the new campaign, dubbed Tea on THC and run by both the Colorado School for Public Health and private company Initium Health, was sharing “racist” imagery on social media and using “debunked” anti-cannabis myths to target minority communities.
The images that James objected to – which apparently were removed from Tea on THC’s website and Instagram account as of Tuesday morning – were cartoons of Black babies and children, with supposed “facts” about cannabis hovering around the Black kids.
One of the claims James said has been roundly “debunked” reads, “THC transfer: THC enters and stays in breast milk.” Immediately next to that caption, James noted, is a separate one that reads, “Research needed: Cannabis risks in breastfeeding unclear.”
The other images – all featuring cartoons of Black children – go on to suggest that the use of cannabis by pregnant women could lead to ongoing cognitive development problems in children as they grow, ranging from “impaired mental development” to “challenges with impulse control” to “altered brain activity, higher psychosis and substance risk.”
“Basically everything that (they’re) putting out there is an opinion, a false opinion,” James said. “The way that this was done, it comes off as amazingly racist, and the information is objectively wrong.”
James said she immediately took her concerns straight to University of Colorado leadership on Monday, and spoke to both Chancellor Don Elliman and President Todd Saliman. James said both of them agreed with her that the images were offensive and were able to get the campaign to remove those specific images, since the CSPH is part of the CU system.
“The first thing that CU says to me is, ‘Well, the people that did it were Black,’” James said, referring to Initium Health Principal James Corbett. “Being Black does not shield one from being objectively stupid.”
James’ next goal is to have the entire campaign suspended, particularly because it’s paid for with $2 million of state money, due to a 2021 legislative bill that directed the creation of a public awareness campaign related to high-potency cannabis products, she said. And James, a former political operative who has been close with Gov. Jared Polis for roughly two decades, may have the clout to get it done.
“I want the IG taken down, and I want the website taken down. I also had a conversation yesterday with … the governor and members of the governor’s team, and we’re looking at pulling funding from (the Colorado School for Public Health) for this,” James said. “They pulled the money from CDPHE and gave it to CU Anschutz under House Bill 1317. … It was $2 million, and this is what they came up with for $2 million.”
Spokespeople for CU and Initium Health did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday, but Initium Health issued an apology on Tuesday for the “representation choices and images” used in the campaign because of “how these evoked historical misrepresentations.” The apology did not address the claims of misinformation, however.
The campaign is not an isolated incident, James warned. Rather, for her it is another reminder that the cannabis trade needs vigilant protectors in politics, ready to ward off near-annual attacks from anti-cannabis activists who regularly introduce bills to cap THC potency, gut funding for social equity programs, and other various ways to roll back marijuana legalization.
“It seems like we are going to continually have to be diligent and to be able to fight about this, just to be able to exist as a industry that is viable and putting billions of dollars of tax dollars into the state of Colorado,” James said.
James noted that there’s already been yet another anti-marijuana bill introduced in the Colorado Legislature this session, Senate Bill 76, which James said would upend the industry with a raft of new regulations, including a ban on edibles and a prohibition on nearly all cannabis sales to anyone under the age of 25.
That bill and the campaign, James said, are both likely the brain children of Blue Rising, a nonprofit activist group that has been trying to roll back marijuana legalization in Colorado for years through similar incremental legislation.
“A lot of parents out there want to blame their issues with their children on cannabis, and there is just not that case,” James said. “This is not an issue of industry. It’s an issue of being able to send your kids out into the world with good parenting, being able to make good choices like anybody else.”
The campaign, which was funded with cannabis tax dollars, used racist imagery and debunked myths about the drug. Read More
