In the United States, online superstore Amazon is encouraging Congress to approve federal legislation completely legalising cannabis.
As the world’s largest online retailer, this marks a significant shift in policy and reflects a new global acceptance of cannabis usage.
With reform in the air, how long will it be before you can order your weed on Amazon and have it arrive at your door the following day?
Committed to reform
Beth Galetti, the Senior Vice President of People eXperience and Technology at Amazon, said: “We strongly believe the time has come to reform the nation’s cannabis policy, and we are committed to helping lead the effort…Today’s status quo is unfair and untenable”.
But why now?
According to Galetti, it’s tough for Amazon to come up with cannabis guidelines for employees because federal legislation differs from local laws in each state.
The nation’s second largest private employer is also struggling to to grow its workforce, partly due to screening job candidates for cannabis use, which it has now discontinued.
“Pre-employment marijuana testing disproportionately impacts people of color and acts as a barrier to employment…we’ve found that eliminating pre-employment testing for cannabis allows us to expand our applicant pool”, Galetti said.
Lobbying
Amazon is now lobbying hard in Congress to lift the federal prohibition on the sale, possession, or use of cannabis completely.
The movement they are pushing is known as the ‘Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2021’. MORE, for short, is a landmark piece of legislation that would remove cannabis entirely from the list of prohibited substances.
It would put an end to adult criminalization of the drug, abolish all criminal penalties associated with it, and take other significant steps toward criminal justice reform, social equality, and economic growth.
Individuals’ cannabis convictions would also be automatically expunged at no cost to them.
Acceptance
This new acceptance of cannabis users as regular and functional members of society is without doubt wonderful.
A welcome departure from the default scenario in most countries, which is to smash down the doors of cannabis users and imprison them in a cage.
On top of this, the ridiculous but somehow persistent myth of the ‘lazy stoner’ appears to be going up in smoke. Thanks to Amazon! What a bizarre situation we find ourselves in.
Amazon growth
2021 has been an extremely busy year for Jeff Bezos in the United States.
His burgeoning international corporation has already established well over 250 new warehouses, sorting centres, regional air hubs, and delivery stations.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, it has hired over 450,000 people and there are presently 750,000 employees operating across the country.
Additionally, earlier this month Amazon increased the average base wage for the 125,000 new employees working in transportation and warehousing to $18 (£13.22) per hour.
Perhaps in the near future, Amazon employees will be granted enough time throughout their workday to use toilet facilities without having to defecate in a plastic bag in order to hit their targets.
Selling weed
With the company strongly pushing for federal legalisation, one can’t help but think that its motives aren’t entirely selfless.
Perhaps Amazon has one eye on the vast potential profits of selling weed online – some people believe it is going to happen sooner rather than later.
Either way, when such a larger and influential company such as Amazon starts supporting cannabis legalisation, it’s a clear sign that the conversation is picking up steam and change is near.
What do you think? Is Amazon lobbying for legalisation a good thing? Would you buy weed off Amazon?
