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Medical, or small business?  

Michael Dresden holds high expectations for Washington’s marijuana trade. Dresden’s vision is to use local, sustainable and highly taxed micro-crops of marijuana to eliminate the state’s deficit and fight international terrorism. Despite Dresden’s lofty goals, many may view the twenty-something Vancouver resident as a simple drug dealer with delusions of grandeur.

Dresden, whose name and date of birth varied on each of the six Washington state ID cards he presented during a recent interview, uses a straight forward business model. Dresden collects what he describes as “surplus” marijuana from state licensed medical marijuana growers and distributes it to recreational cannabis users at a sizable mark up. . . .

Dresden’s greatest business fear is a tobacco industry take-over of the marijuana trade. “Sooner or later, the tobacco industry will get tired of its dwindling profits and will use its entire army of lobbyists to control the marijuana trade” Dresden stated. Dresden fears tobacco companies will lobby for laws and regulation that give exclusive marijuana grow rights to mega-corporations. “I think what will happen is that congress will place so-called ‘safe-guards’ in a future legalization [of marijuana] bill that really just give large international corporations a monopoly of marijuana.” Dresden’s concerns of a tobacco industry takeover have been around for decades and gained credibility when a 1976 document surfaced during a 1990’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry.

A 1976 confidential tobacco industry forecast prepared by Forecasting International, Ltd for Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation made direct references to national trends in recreational marijuana use and the tobacco industry’s ability to offer marijuana as a retail product. “[Marijuana] also has important implications for the tobacco industry in terms of an alternative product line. [Tobacco industries] have the land to grow it, the machines to roll it and package it [and] the distribution to market it… Estimates indicate that the market in legalized marijuana might be as high as $10 billion annually." the report stated. . . .

Dresden believes a tobacco industry changeover to marijuana would pose insurmountable competition for Northwest marijuana growers. “When the tobacco industry starts to switch over to marijuana, it will use the same locations, equipment and tactics that is has used for tobacco… Southern states will get the employment and tax benefits and the traditional Northwest trade will be destroyed.” Dresden stated. Dresden’s concerns also include product quality and environmental impact. “Look at what large corporations did to tobacco, the additives, the genetic modification, the use of environmentally harmful fertilizers and pesticides; do we really want them to be in charge of future marijuana farms?” Dresden asked rhetorically.

The idea of switching over tobacco farms to hemp or marijuana has gained momentum in the face of declining tobacco sales and the current economic recession.

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