How do you convince older voters to support medical marijuana? This activist has an idea
When you’re a medical marijuana advocate and know that a lot of the people you need to convince are from an older generation, and that they may live in rural areas with little internet access, how do you reach them?
You film an old school, PSA-style TV ad based on the anti-drug campaigns they grew up watching, says Chris Suttle.
“We’re taking the weapons that have been used against us in the war on drugs and turning them against our oppressors,” he said.
He plans for the ad to feature cancer patients, former opioid addicts, veterans suffering from PTSD and others who say they would benefit from medical marijuana if North Carolina legalized it. A bipartisan proposal, Senate Bill 711, is currently making its way through the state legislature and recently passed its first committee hearing, The News & Observer reported.
Suttle has done a lot of preaching to the choir while volunteering with NC NORML, the pro-legalization group. But ever since legislative leaders at the Republican-majority General Assembly allowed a medical marijuana bill to begin moving forward in June, he has spent more time trying to convert opponents.
Between a push to sell pro-legalization T-shirts on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill — and online — and a GoFundMe campaign, Suttle has so far raised more than $1,100 for the public service announcement-style ad.
But he’s short of his $2,500 goal, with a deadline fast approaching to be able to get the ad filmed later this month. That could allow it to hit the airwaves by August or September, when the legislature will likely still be in session and debating this bill.
“We’re shooting for the grandmother who still votes in every local election and votes the same way her mother voted, or the way her pastor votes,” Suttle said. “And show her that she knows people this will help. That person with pancreatic cancer, that veteran with PTSD.”
Many pastors are indeed against medical marijuana. The main opposition so far has come from two conservative Christian organizations, the N.C. Values Coalition and the Christian Action League.
“Rates of marijuana use and addiction increase significantly more in states that passed medical marijuana laws compared to states that have not,” said the Rev. Mark Creech, a Johnston County preacher and leader of the Christian Action League, at a June 23 hearing at the legislature.
Medical vs. recreational marijuana
Creech is well-known to lawmakers for his years spent fighting against looser rules governing alcohol in North Carolina, often successfully. He has repeatedly told them now that he fears the medical marijuana bill is a slippery slope to fully legalized weed, even for non-medical uses.
The current proposal would authorize doctors to prescribe marijuana to ease the symptoms of ailments like cancer, PTSD, ALS and sickle cell anemia, but not glaucoma or migraines like other states allow.
Suttle thinks the ad would help advocates convince voters who are on the fence but so far are mainly hearing from opponents.
“We need to get to the voter in one of those counties that we can’t always get to, who sees this on TV and says, ‘Wow that’s my friend Betty, she had cancer and could’ve used this,’” Suttle said. “That’s going to help her vote with her heart and make an informed decision.”
Ballot initiatives vs. legislative action
Shadowing the PSA fundraising campaign is a key question: Why film the ad in the first place? Medical marijuana is popular, even among Republican voters. Why spend money trying to convince the small number of holdouts?
An Elon University poll from February found that in North Carolina, 73% of voters support medical marijuana and just 18% are opposed. That included 64% of Republican voters who said they would support medical marijuana, more than double the 27% of GOP voters opposed.
But popularity doesn’t matter as much in North Carolina as it does elsewhere. And that’s by design.
Nearly every Southern state with medical marijuana has legalized it the same way: Through a citizen-led ballot initiative. That’s when a petition becomes popular enough that it can be put on the ballot for a statewide vote, bypassing the legislature entirely.
Alabama is one rare exception. Its GOP-led legislature approved medical marijuana two months ago, and Republican Gov. Kay Ivey then signed it into law. But in general, fellow Southern states — like Arkansas, Florida and Mississippi — have approved medical marijuana by ballot initiative, not at the legislature.
Ballot initiatives, however, are banned in North Carolina.
The only way medical marijuana will ever become legal here is if the state legislature or Congress makes it so.
And that lack of ballot initiatives — combined with the fact that many Republican lawmakers are in safe seats where their real threat to reelection is not from Democrats but rather a primary challenge from fellow Republicans — gives the 18% of voters opposed to medical marijuana outsize influence.
Primary elections have very low turnout. So while opponents of medical marijuana might make up only a small fraction of the total vote, they could very well swing a GOP primary if that becomes a key issue.
But Jason Husser, director of the Elon Poll, told The News & Observer in February that their polling shows many Republican lawmakers might not actually have as much to fear from their voters as they might expect.
While fully legal recreational weed is more controversial, he said, medical marijuana has majority support among every age, race and gender demographic.
“Unless a member of the General Assembly is in a very conservative, extremely religious district, they’re not likely to lose votes for supporting it,” Husser said.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
