Last Friday, the Committee to Regulate Marijuana Like Wine signed a contract with Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (FM3) to conduct a poll of our initiative. On Tuesday, January 31st, this campaign will be releasing the results of that poll. If our initiative polls anywhere above 55%, it will be big news for media and for major donors who are awaiting the results.
That's right, for the first time in this campaign, we have the attention of several major donors. These funders, and their representatives, are patiently waiting to see if an upcoming poll of our initiative will show if we can actually win.
In addition to their critical work for the Prop. 215 campaign, FM3 has provided research and strategic consulting services for ballot measure efforts to reform drug laws in Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Washington State, and the District of Columbia as well as the local level. Also, it was FM3 that first advised us about a poll by the Economist magazine that showed 62% support for regulating marijuana like alcohol, which we used to base our initiative. We believe this approach will give us much higher polling numbers than anyone is expecting.
As a result of their prior work, we believe FM3 knows how best to examine voters’ willingness to reform governmental regulation of marijuana, and which messages have been most effective in convincing voters to support such initiatives. Furthermore, their past research on drug policy and regulatory reform means they can work quickly and efficiently on our behalf to design the questionnaire, and provide us with results and strategic recommendations in a timely manner.
FM3 will work closely with us to develop the survey instrument. They foresee proceeding through several drafts of the survey, incorporating feedback before each revision so that the research identifies all pertinent issues in order to provide a strategic roadmap for the development of public communications and to guide campaign activities.
