{"id":8206,"date":"2018-04-16T23:21:16","date_gmt":"2018-04-16T23:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/?p=16229"},"modified":"2018-04-16T23:21:16","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T23:21:16","slug":"former-governor-william-f-weld-goes-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/former-governor-william-f-weld-goes-green\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Governor William F. Weld Goes Green"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/former-governor-william-f-weld-goes-green\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p>William Weld, the governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997 (and the Libertarian Party\u2019s 2016 nominee for vice president) was back in the news this past week for an unexpected reason: Along with former speaker of the House John Boehner, he\u2019s joining the board of a marijuana company, Acreage Holdings.<\/p>\n<p>Acreage controls a medical marijuana group that has provisional licenses for dispensaries in the Worcester area and owns marijuana cultivation facilities and retailers in 10 other states.<\/p>\n<p>The Globe caught up with Weld at the end of a long day of press calls.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Governor, why\u2019d you get involved in this?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I heard indirectly from John Boehner, an old pal of mine, that he was going to be doing this. And I was immediately attracted to it, really more because of my own background than because of my relationship with the speaker. I\u2019d dealt with him on leadership issues back in the 1990s, but I\u2019d also come out for medical marijuana in the \u201890s, for specific treatments \u2014 glaucoma, nausea for chemotherapy, that kind of thing. I\u2019ve said for a long time that we should explore whether the active ingredients could alleviate symptoms and suffering. Now there\u2019s new research showing it actually helps with cancer, schizophrenia, epilepsy, a lot of stuff.<\/p>\n<p>So for me it was an opportunity not only to create a company that has a commanding position in the industry but also to achieve a great social policy outcome. If we could get cannabis descheduled as a federal Class I narcotic, then research in 50 states could go ahead.<\/p>\n<p>For me, it was a win-win. I get invited to join a lot of boards, believe me, but I jumped at this one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Some people have criticized Boehner for flip-flopping on this . . .<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, I hadn\u2019t identified him with this issue at all. But I knew him to be the sort of guy who could sort of go with the times. . . . The public support for medical marijuana is at 94 percent \u2014 that\u2019s a record, and John sees that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How have your own views on cannabis evolved?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I supported Question 4 in 2016, which was the first time I\u2019d come out for full legalization. And as the vice presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, I was happy to endorse it and descheduling in the 2016 campaign, as opposed to an industry in the shadows that nobody can tax and which fosters organized crime and blackmail and that sort of thing. It\u2019s like alcohol prohibition in the old days . . . forcing people to transact or live in the shadows is not good policy, as a prudential matter. It\u2019s not good for the cohesion of society.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s your vision for Acreage?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What we\u2019re doing and about to do puts me in line for what [former CEO] Henri Termeer did with Genzyme. He pioneered rolling out these \u2018orphan\u2019 drugs that treated specialized populations and became something of a worldwide phenomenon. You could say that cannabinoids now are an orphan drug because of the scheduling of marijuana as a Class 1 narcotic. The number of conditions they could treat are in the hundreds, if not thousands.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You were a federal prosecutor \u2014 did you pursue many marijuana cases, and do you regret any of them now?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I did, but only very big ones. When I was US attorney, I said I was not interested in \u201cbuy-and-bust\u201d cases for a few ounces of cocaine, much less a few ounces of marijuana. It\u2019s a matter of prosecutorial resources and the gravity of events. Since then, I\u2019ve moved considerably in the direction of thinking that possession of any drug shouldn\u2019t be the subject of [prison] sentences at all. It should be treated as a national public health emergency. I lost a family member to the opiate crisis. What starts as perfectly legal in the doctor\u2019s office becomes a gateway to fentanyl, which is a completely murderous drug. Now the thinking is that cannabinoids . . . could wind up being an exit drug from the ramp that leads to fentanyl, as opposed to the gateway drug we thought it was in the \u201990s.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you ever used cannabis?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I have never smoked a cigarette of any kind \u2014 and I blush to admit that, as a self-advertised, drop-dead Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia fan. But you can be an honorary fan if you have a glass of Jack Daniels in your hand \u2014 or a true blue fan if you have a glass of Jack Daniel\u2019s in each hand.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Will you try it once it\u2019s legal?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d like to indulge you but it\u2019s so long not been a part of my life that I think inertia will keep me on my present course. Although \u2014 if they make Jack Daniel\u2019s illegal, I might reconsider my opposition.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you closely followed the implementation of legalization in Massachusetts? What do you think of the equity programs that encourage the participation of people from communities with high arrest rates for drug crimes?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Blacks are four times as likely to be arrested and incarcerated than whites. That\u2019s not a good place to start in terms of having everybody view the law favorably and consider themselves full members of society. I haven\u2019t seen much literature about having minorities partake in the fruits of the marijuana industry, but it strikes me as sweet revenge. That sounds like a good program.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/420-news\/international-cannabis-news\/former-governor-william-f-weld-goes-green\/\">Former Governor William F. Weld Goes Green<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\">420 MAGAZINE \u00ae<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William Weld, the governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997 (and the Libertarian Party\u2019s 2016 nominee for vice president) was&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/420-news\/international-cannabis-news\/former-governor-william-f-weld-goes-green\/\" class=\"read-more\">[Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\/420-news\/international-cannabis-news\/former-governor-william-f-weld-goes-green\/\">Former Governor William F. Weld Goes Green<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.420magazine.com\">420 MAGAZINE \u00ae<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1616,9,1,3],"tags":[4184],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}