About

The Center’s mission is: to steer cannabis law and policy change away from prohibition culture, in the interest of ending the war on drugs. We do this with research, collaboration and “civil society” participation as a non-governmental organization.

What we do:

• Produce original research and analysis of cannabis law and policy from the perspective of changing society’s reliance on the drug war as a form of social control.
• Produce The Orignal Terpestival™, a popular education event that double as fundraiser. We are on our fourth iteration in the past 5 years. Every year there are different legal constraints to deal with, and in the absence of an event license we have chosen to make Terpestival 2019 a private event.
• Invited public speaking and consultation. The ED is regularly invited to speak and provide feedback with public and private stakeholders on the subject of post-prohibition and what to do about the continuity of prohibition. In any given year, there are 6-10 opportunities to do so for academic, policymaker, grassroots, and industry conferences, meetings, and events, with many more individual consultations.
• Participate as a nonprofit member of The Cannabis Alliance, the largest Washington I 502 trade organization. This participation is annual, as the primary collaborator for the annual Cannabis Alliance Summit; and ongoing, to help the Cannabis Alliance’s legislative agenda that is related to civil liberties (conviction vacation and home grow, for example).

Organizational Structure and Purpose

The Cannabis and Social Policy Center (CASP) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) research cooperative led by on Executive Director (ED), Dr. Dominic Corva. The Research Director sets the project agenda of the Center at the annual Board meeting.

Funds are raised on a rolling basis, as-needed. Since 2013, we have stayed a float through a combination of consulting contracts, Terpestival fundraisers, occasional university employment, and grassroots donations.

The CASP Board reflects this unique democratic research agenda. CASP Board members primarily serve as information portals to the real cannabis whole plant economy, without which nothing related to cannabis can happen. Each Board member brings a unique subject matter expertise, across a range of cannabis issues including science, economy, politics and culture.

The Board members are responsible for consistently updating the ED from their fields of specialization; and for peer-reviewing information coming in to the ED from other sources. Their value as information portals relates directly to their reputations as successful and trustworthy market actors. Board members hold the ED accountable for the verifiability and reliability of the information shared with and by CASP.