It’s Time for the NORML Business Network

The cannabis industry is exploding, both nationally and internationally, and it needs an industry trade group dedicated to protecting marijuana consumers. To fill this need, NORML has created the NORML Business Network to ensure that cannabis smokers and entrepreneurs are protected.

As far as marijuana is concerned, this is the first time in American history that we’re talking about incorporation instead of incarceration. As our society begins to responsibly regulate marijuana, we’ll continue to call on state agencies to create business models that advance best practices and safe delivery systems.

We’re turning our energy and efforts toward becoming the Better Business Bureau for America’s cannabis consumers, and advocating for their rights instead of just fighting for their freedom. Joining the NORML Business Network is the equivalent of receiving our seal of approval.

The marijuana movement is no longer about awarding the High Times Cannabis Cup to the best new strain of Purple Diesel. It’s about creating a business model that will fuel economic growth for an emerging industry of diverse professionals and enterprises, from cultivation to retail sales.

The goal of the NORML Business Network is to act as an advocate for cannabis consumers—in the same way that Ralph Nader has advocated for car consumers. We want to partner with investors and entrepreneurs who have a social conscience, and with producers who deliver clean cannabis (without pesticides). We want businesses held accountable; equitable taxation; and tax revenues earmarked for building schools, rather than more prisons for our nation’s pot users.

We’ll license and lend our name to those businesses that best serve the cannabis consumer. NORML will continue to fight for justice and fairness, now on expanded terrain, and we’ll form strategic partnerships with companies that have a higher purpose.

In the future, growers who did time for cultivation could be your budtenders. Cannabis users who were drug-tested by probation officers will manage dispensaries. Former police officers who investigated drug deals might provide security in retail cannabis stores. Ongoing research and development will lead to healthier ways to consume cannabis, from vaporizers to edibles.

The NORML Business Network only asks that your business has a conscience, contributes to the community—and remembers the epileptic child, the veteran with PTSD and others who could be helped by cannabis. We’ll be ushering in an era of marijuana consumer advocacy, normalization and legalization. Let’s do it the righteous way.

It’s a whole new world we’re entering, together. The NORML of tomorrow begins today.

For more information about the NORML Business Network, go to: norml.org/business-network.

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