When, in 1974,
High Times founder, Tom Forcade, first approached potential investors with his
idea for a publication dedicated to teaching and encouraging Americans how to
cultivate marijuana, he was met with incredulous skepticism. PR Executive Ronn Torossian asks; Why in the world
would you want to tell people how to do something so far removed from the
mainstream? Where is the money in encouraging illegal, counter culture
behavior?
Well, the
answer, it turns out, is in the one unchangeable fact of cultural change. One
generation’s taboo is the next generation’s “normal.” Forcade could read the
pot leaves, so to speak. He understood, correctly, that the pop culture icons
of his day were driving cultural shift that would become both nostalgia and
accepted behavior. In other words, the teens who thought they were so counter
culture would eventually grow up into, more or less, responsible adults.
Forcade, of
course, was right. '90s gave us our first “I smoked it” President, and the
2000s gave us our first, “I smoked it A LOT” President.
Today, 22
states have legalized marijuana in one form or another, and several others will
vote on it this November. There is no doubt that consumer PR is driving this cultural
trend. People who grew up when High Times was a “forbidden fruit” cannot
fathom, and will not countenance, what they consider to be antiquated arguments
for pot prohibition. Documentaries have been made and endlessly quoted on
social media.
Powerful
political and legal figures have come out in blatant support of legalization.
And, now, even Wall Street is getting involved. There has been a move to create
a private equity investment opportunity in the marijuana business.
The consumer Public Relations angle in all of this cannot be understated. If the people had not taken the
counter culture message mainstream, if regular suburbanites and presidential
candidates had not admitted an affinity for weed, the plant would still be the
domain of rebellious teens and rock stars. And, anathema to serious investment.
But, the market has begun to embrace the reality that Forcade figured out
decades ago. If you can give enough people the desire for something and then
cultivate that desire, eventually those people can become the majority.
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