A national advocacy group has announced a campaign that will allow marijuana retailers to give their customers the opportunity to donate to federal cannabis lobbying. Customers can do this by rounding down their purchases to the nearest $1.
U.S. Cannabis Council said Monday that the multi-state operator Curaleaf was one of its members and spearheaded the campaign’s first official month in February. Nearly 140 Curaleaf stores in 12 states have allowed customers to round up purchases and contribute to federal reform lobbying.
MariMed and Standard Wellness are two other USCC members who have also agreed to participate in the campaign. They plan to do so this spring. USCC spokesperson told Marijuana Moment Monday that the organization is in discussions with other retailers to join the campaign.
The proceeds will be given to USCC. As a 501(c),4 organization, it is allowed to spend as much as half of its income on electoraleering in support of reform-minded political candidates. It can also use donated funds to its Super PAC Legalize America.
David Culver said in a USCC press release that he was “excited” to expand the Legalize national campaign. Customers at regulated shops feel strongly that cannabis must be legalized federally. They can now directly support legalization when they check out.
The organization stated that they “beta tested” the campaign in three Curaleaf stores in New Jersey between September and October last year. The results of this experiment informed them to expand it nationally. The round-up will be available at 139 Curaleaf stores in 12 states, including Arizona, Connecticut, Florida Illinois, Massachusetts Maryland, Maine North Dakota, Nevada New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania.
Curaleaf CEO Matt Darin stated that “The USCC Campaign gives Curaleaf Customers the Opportunity to Directly Impact the Movement to Legalize Cannabis across the Nation–a Long Overdue Change that the Majority of Americans Support.” “We’re proud to launch the first effort across all of our retail stores, and engage our team members and patients in making cannabis an issue in 2024.”
Curaleaf started the campaign in February, and will temporarily suspend its donation drive by the end of this month while other members take it over. However, USCC says that Curaleaf plans to rejoin the effort at a later date.
USCC has not provided data on the amount of funding that legalization efforts have generated.
When it launched its Super PAC in 2010, the organization announced the plan to round up marijuana sales.
USCC did not specify what political goals the donations would support. However, reported that it will lobby on several cannabis bills by 2023. These include legislation to legalize cannabis, open up banking for the industry, and provide incentives at the state level.
In 2024, it’s expected that legislators will continue to work on the banking bill, The Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation Banking Act. Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), after the measure passed the Banking Committee in September, has called it a legislative priority.
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