The Denver Gazette called him “the founding father of legal pot in Colorado” in 2021. He’s Rob Corry. And now he regrets his involvement in expanding access to weed.
His reversal on this issue was a process. In 2021, he was testifying for more regulation of marijuana products and medical marijuana in Colorado but firmly denounced the marijuana industry for creating and maintaining a public health crisis across the nation.
His latest published piece indicates that he’s had enough: an op-ed, published in The Denver Gazette.
You can read the whole thing here.
The piece is a masterclass in exposing Big Marijuana for what it is. We’re breaking it down (and we also recommend checking out the personal interviews he did with SAM and Every Brain Matters in 2021).
Corry writes:
Big Pot’s new ad blitz, sponsored in part by Big Pot’s new investors—Big Tobacco/Big Pharma/Big Alcohol—focuses on rescheduling to allow this pot cartel to access banking and compete with Canada’s system, which lacks meaningful financial guardrails.
Here he echoes our own uncovering of the “Bigs” being all-in on marijuana. These corporate behemoths, who Corry aptly refers to as the “merchants of death” in his interview with SAM, are in fact teammates. And Big Marijuana is the star player.
The pot robber barons freely advertise and boast of their criminal activities without consequence, and throw millions in campaign ‘donations’ at the president and other politicians. The humble opponents of Big Pot don’t sell millions of dollars worth of addictive substances every day, so these underdogs have little influence to peddle.
Here, Corry rightly points out the massive inequality in funds between Big Marijuana and those fighting to curb its expansion. And key to that expansion is having more and more people addicted to their product. So it’s music to their ears that:
Marijuana addiction has skyrocketed in Colorado and nationwide since the commercialization of it, and since the industry put the marijuana on steroids, genetically modified it, and injected it with chemicals and hormones.
Not only is marijuana addictive, but the marijuana industry is literally making them even more addictive. Worse, they target their addicted products specifically to children:
Big Pot cynically uses hundreds of child-targeted ruses to create early addicts for its products, even literal gummy bears and goofy colorful advertising that makes sober grown adults cringe, but which attracts children (or child-like adult marijuana addicts).
Hook ‘em young so they stay hooked indefinitely—or for as long as they live.
Corry reflects on the evolution of marijuana since his own youth:
God indeed has a sense of humor, within the previous decade or so, Big Pot has artificially supercharged marijuana and literally made Reefer Madness into reality.
And in the arms race between marijuana companies to make the most potent and addictive products, “[a]ccidental overdosing of edibles or concentrates is almost the norm, rather than the exception . . . . Big Pot has placed marijuana firmly within Schedule I.”
Big Marijuana has essentially laid the groundwork for marijuana to stay in Schedule I by making it so hazardous, in other words. That is exactly right.
Big Pot also colludes with certain media entities that depend on advertising dollars, and thus has an army of pot propagandist lapdogs.
It is hard to compute just how much area the “tentacles” (Corry’s word) of Big Marijuana have covered. But a quick look at the recent pressure campaign to sway the Trump administration on rescheduling is illustrative: Big Weed enlisted everyone from Mike Tyson to Joe Rogan to sell the idea that the drug belongs in Schedule III and paid handsomely to do it.
Big Pot is already arrogant, strident, and powerful enough; a rescheduling now would demolish guardrails and send Big Pot the message to further tighten its chokehold over our communities and youth. For now, marijuana should remain in Schedule I alongside its new cousin LSD, until Big Pot decides to act responsibly, or is forced to.
This is another often-overlooked point: First that rescheduling will embolden a dangerous industry and second that, yes, the drugs they make can mess up your mind as badly as hallucinogens can (if not more so).
Finally, it’s important to note that Corry not only speaks from the unique perspective of being the chief architect of Amendment 64, but also as one of the many people who personally struggled with cannabis use disorder and relatedly cannabis-induced psychosis. In his interview with Every Brain Matters, he states that he “has personally experienced cannabis-induced psychosis” and that “honesty is the best policy.”
So he knows what he’s talking about. Corry’s coming with a story from a place of sad experience—and it’s a story everyone (from the president on down) should listen to.