What commercialization is doing to cannabis | Ben Cort

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2018

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2012, Colorado legalized cannabis and added to what has fast become a multibillion-dollar global industry for all things weed-related: from vape pens to brownies and beyond. But to say that we've legalized marijuana is subtly misleading -- what we've really done is commercialized THC, says educator Ben Cort, and that's led to products that are unnaturally potent. In an eye-opening talk, Cort examines the often unseen impacts of the commercial cannabis industry -- and calls on us to question those who are getting rich off of it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This TED Talk features substance abuse expert Ben Court recorded live at TEDx Mile High 2017.
0:09.0	Look, if you guys are anything like me, you have found it harder and harder to turn around recently
0:15.0	without seeing words like free range, farm to table, organically produced, especially here in Colorado. Now, as we've become
0:24.5	more conscientious of the way that we eat in recent years, these once unfamiliar words have worked
0:30.2	their way into our daily lexicon. When we started to pay more attention to the way that the food
0:36.0	we were eating interacted with our bodies and with the earth,
0:40.3	the food industry had to listen.
0:42.9	And the results have been really powerful.
0:46.3	Now, those of you out there from states like Washington and Oregon,
0:51.0	and of course, my fellow Coloradans,
0:56.8	y'all know what I'm talking about,
1:07.9	because this is not, words like all natural and homegrown are not just being used in our diets.
1:11.6	There's this whole new industry using this language now.
1:22.6	You guys know, it's weed. An industry, the tax of sale of about $6 billion worth of product in 2016. So what if I would have proposed to you that some of what you think you know about this legalized marijuana thing could be wrong.
1:31.5	Listen, I get it.
1:33.6	Talking about issues with legal weed is a pretty quick way to get uninvited from the cool kids table.
1:38.3	I know that better than most, but I intend to do it anyway.
1:44.6	First, before I get started, let me be perfectly clear about one thing.
1:49.5	My fight is not against the casual adult use of marijuana.
1:53.3	I don't care about that.
1:55.7	What I care deeply about is this new industry that is working to convince us that we are
2:00.2	consuming something natural
	...

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