by Rick Thompson/March 2, 2017
Politico dropped a story on March 2 exploring the influx of Washington D.C. lobbying forms with ties to the new Trump administration. Among those firms was a listing of significance to the marijuana industry.
From Politico:
— Gotham Government Relations & Communications, a New York lobbying firm that worked on Trump’s campaign announcement and opened a Washington office after he won, has also signed two new clients, said Brad Gerstman, a Gotham founding partner. The firm will lobby for Todd Mitchem Companies, a national marijuana consultancy — a difficult gig given the Trump administration’s tougher stance on pot. “We want to talk about and educate the administration about the opportunity for jobs in this industry,” Gerstman said in an interview. Gotham plans to tout marijuana’s benefits for treating PTSD and will push to kill the ban on banks doing business with marijuana companies. Gotham has also signed Logic, the vaping company, which was previously a client of the firm in New York.
Mitchem describes himself on his LinkedIn page as a “Thought leader in disruption and leadership”. He split with his partners in 2015 from a company he co-founded, a social media app for cannabis consumers called ‘High There’. In 2014 he quit the Colorado company O.penVape after activists attacked his drug testing policy for company employees. He is a public speaker, an author and has an information website.
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