THE TRUTH of the matter is the CNMI create the Cannabis Tourism Industry but we tied our hands failing miserably in growing the industry. How can there be a Cannabis Tourism Industry and there is NOWHERE for tourists to smoke — it’s beyond ridiculous and bordering on being brain-dead from the effects of a false stigma. The CNMI’s Cannabis Tourism was doomed to failure from day-one leaving the industry to depend solely on locals purchasing from the dispensaries. But unlike Colorado that has millions of people, the CNMI has less than 50,000, meaning the CNMI must import people (tourists) to purchase marijuana or be content with paying more to run the industry than WE are taking in. The recent yearly report showed that we spent around 250,000 on employees & Board members but only brought in a little over 40,000. Unlike Colorado that also got tens of millions in free national and international advertisement being the first state to legalize, the CNMI didn’t get any free advertisement nor has the CNMI done any advertisement outside of the CNMI not even on Guam. Our Cannabis Tourism Industry is NOT working and it is imperative that WE change our methodology for promoting the industry.
The stigma about marijuana actually played a major role in creating our present Cannabis law, which is why the law only “half-way started the industry” and wisdom tells most of us that anything “half-done usually won’t work very well.” Marijuana should be treated very much the same way we treat the other vices like cigarettes & alcohol. We allow cigarettes and alcohol usage in public but marijuana is banned and we even random test for marijuana but no testing for alcohol usage on the job all because of a FALSE stigma. We are even testing EVERY government employee for marijuana when its LEGAL — ridiculous! Science has now even proved marijuana is the least dangerous and least addictive than alcohol and cigarettes but our laws don’t reflect this new reality. Local adults have been using marijuana and respecting our youth at parties by going to the back of the house and on the beaches EVER-SINCE marijuana first arrived in the islands so why did we make a law against using it at the beach — the stigma! We can’t even have Cannabis Tourism events all because of a law based on the stigma against marijuana that must be changed.
The reality is the CNMI is in the forefront of Cannabis Tourism in our Region of the Pacific but it seems WE are the only ones who know this fact given the lack of marketing and advertisement. The reality is any business, especially and industry must “market & promote their products” or face doom & gloom from their competitors, which is why I continue to admonish the fact that once Guam legalizes recreational usage our hopes for Cannabis Tourism may be doomed if we don’t correct the mistakes made in creating our Cannabis Tourism industry. Marijuana usage is really “sensible commonsense” but the stigma had the powers-that-be dumbfounded and they didn’t LISTEN (Linda) when I wrote the first draft of the law and they even threw away over 50 pages.
But the new reality is, I’m sure most parents who are now educated about marijuana would much rather see their children using marijuana when they grow-up opposed to cigarettes & alcohol, as marijuana has never caused a bar-fight like alcohol, a death nor an illness like we see with alcohol and cigarettes that have contributed to all kinds of disease and thousands if not millions of deaths over time. It is truly time for the legislature and for our society to get educated about marijuana and get rid of the stigma that has prevented our society from evolving in the use of vices for a better and safer vice — marijuana! Just think, God gave us every herb to use but he didn’t give us cigarettes & alcohol, so keep that in mind. It’s time to GET-REAL as we say in my culture because our Cannabis Tourism Industry needs a complete “overhaul” if we are to put the industry on the right course to truly bring in revenues for our government — for TRUE! One People One Direction.
Ambrose M. Bennett is an Economist who minored in Sociology, a Political Scientist, a retired teacher & former CNMI Board of Education Member, a James Madison Fellow (U.S. Constitutional Scholar), a Fulbright-Hays & lifetime Humanities Scholar who resides in Kagman III.
Ambrose M. Bennett
