Top Marijuana Advocacy Group Urges Collaboration With Industry Amid Rise Of ‘Neo-Prohibitionist Movement’

A leading marijuana reform advocacy organization is circulating an open
letter to the cannabis industry, stressing that the two pillars of the
community “need each other” at a time when a “resurgent and well-funded
neo-prohibitionist movement” is on the rise.

“Neither industry nor advocacy will succeed alone,” the letter from
Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) Executive Director Adam Smith says.

While some industries concoct seemingly grassroots campaigns to create the
appearance of credibility, that “fake grass” is “inorganic, doesn’t grow,
nourishes nothing, and is made of mostly forever plastics and noxious
chemicals,” Smith wrote.

But it’s a different story for the cannabis reform movement.

“Cannabis advocacy is not astroturf. It wasn’t created by an industry. In
fact, just the opposite,” Smith said, referring to the fact that the
movement’s successes created the opportunity for the legal marijuana
industry to later emerge. “Cannabis policy reform is a movement. And like
every fight for justice, ours was born out of suffering: the suffering of
people whose liberty, children, homes, education, or lives were stolen from
them in the name of the war on drugs.”

“The suffering of those desperate for medicine for themselves or to help a
loved one to eat, ease pain, or calm seizures,” he said. It rose against a
drug war machine that has fueled government overreach, mass incarceration,
discrimination, and inequity for nearly a century. All based on lies told
about a plant.”

There’s been some tension between the advocacy and industry sides of the
cannabis movement in recent years, especially as philanthropic support for
grassroots organizations has dried up as a majority of states have moved to
legalize marijuana for medical or adult use. It’s an issue that a former
MPP executive, Matthew Schweich, routinely discussed as the group fought
against the changing policy and financial dynamics.

Smith is hoping that his letter will restart the conversation and impress
upon the industry that there are mutual benefits to working more closely
together in the pursuit of reform.

“Industry and advocacy are fighting for the same big goal; not just to end
cannabis prohibition, but to end it well,” Smith told Marijuana Moment on
Wednesday. “Patients and consumers need safe, dependable access, which
requires an economically stable industry that is rationally regulated,
reasonably taxed, and operating within a normalized commercial environment.”

In an open letter to the cannabis industry, MPP's Executive Director, Adam
J. Smith, makes the case that robust independent advocacy is indispensable
to industry's goals, and calls for a more strategic deployment of our
collective political capital. https://t.co/1hg5VOpKwP

— Marijuana Policy Project (@MarijuanaPolicy) October 15, 2025

“But the cannabis issue is about more than dollars and cents, and industry
won’t get there alone. Independent advocacy has been and remains an
indispensable force for reform,” he said. “We may not agree or collaborate
on everything, but we can do a much better job of big picture strategic
coordination, and we have to start now.”

Because prohibition persists, however, he emphasized in the letter that the
associated “suffering, injustice, and inequity” of criminalization also
linger. And that has imperiled the movement that advocates and stakeholders
have worked for years to build. If the industry fails, “we fail together,”
he wrote.

“A strong industry creates jobs, generates tax revenues, and revitalizes
local economies. These arguments were, and still are, powerful incentives
for reform. But they cannot finish the job of ending prohibition. They
don’t speak to the deeper issues that first brought this movement together,
nor can they speak with authority to address the concerns, including public
health and safety, that many lawmakers and their constituents have about
cannabis.”

Smith also pointed out that the prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to
Marijuana (SAM) and its allies are actively “backing legislation, and soon
ballot initiatives, to roll back our progress state by state.” That
includes a possible 2026 ballot measure in Massachusetts to recriminalize
recreational marijuana sales.

Prohibitionists “also know that the normal incentives of any industry,
reducing costs and maximizing profits, can undercut an industry’s
credibility with lawmakers and the public on these threshold issues,” he
said. “Their strategy is to force legislators into a false choice between
your profit motives and their claim to the mantle of public health. They
want you isolated in that fight.”

“But independent advocacy requires resources. And resources have been
scarce. At the Marijuana Policy Project, we have led the fight to secure 29
medical and adult-use laws, both through legislatures and ballot
initiatives. We have helped ensure good faith implementation of those laws
and defended them when opponents have tried to roll them back.”

Smith noted that MPP is actively working to advance adult-use legalization
in Louisiana, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, and it has a “list of
priorities that overlap with the industry’s across multiple legal and
medical states.”

“Cannabis advocacy organizations do not work for the industry, and it’s
true that we will not always align or collaborate on every issue. But our
independence is a feature, not a bug,” he said. “It’s what gives us
credibility and increases our power over time. Anyone who wants to see
sensible and lasting normalization in cannabis needs that independent power
working at full strength.”

There’s a “real urgency” to develop a “deeper, coordinated conversation
between the leaders of industry at every level and the institutions of
independent advocacy about how we move forward together,” the letter states.

“That means renewed financial support, yes. But it also means better
strategic alignment across our common goals and shared purpose as we
confront our common challenges. Neither industry nor advocacy will succeed
alone,” he said. “And maybe you didn’t even realize it was happening. So it
wasn’t your responsibility to step up. But now you know. So now it is.”

The post Top Marijuana Advocacy Group Urges Collaboration With Industry
Amid Rise Of ‘Neo-Prohibitionist Movement’ appeared first on Marijuana
Moment.