Whenever I hear something like that (e.g. the alcohol industry donated to anti-cannabis legislation, or your example above), it makes me wonder what they're thought process is.

Let us assume it profit motivated, and they've calculated their potential losses as a result of legalization (let's call it pl for potential lossses), they've calculated the probability of it passing without a $500k donation (let's call it pnd or probability no donation) and the probability of it passing with a $500k donation (pwd for probablity with donation). Then, they can make the following calculation:

If pl x pwd - pl x pnd > $500k then the $500k is money well spent. Otherwise it's a poor bet. This leads to interesting conclusions:

* Proposition 205 was close (51%-49%). So it seems likely small events could swing it * $500k is in context of a $3m campaign, so it seems again likely that their donation had an impact. But compare it to the 1 billion spent on the general election, and how many more people would be turning out because of the general election, it seems less likely it had an impact * I have no way of knowing what their potential losses are from legalisation, but let's assume they're high.

Let's say the difference between pwd and pnd is a 2.5% chance that their donation swung the election (which seems overly generous, elections usually aren't that easy to swing). That means they are assuming losses of approximately 20 million in Arizona from legalisation.

Generally though, I'm not convinced they made this analysis, and instead were trying to demonstrate that they were opposed.

You're forgetting the need to position themselves as the "good" drug of choice for getting altered. Good marketing.

Bean counters now just need to learn how to factor karma in their calculations

Yes. The scale of the irony here is "smack you in the face" level, whatever reason Insys had for donating.

You need to add to the calculation that if a few states changes, there will be a momentum for more to change.

(That said, for drugs I only use Dark Souls, coffee and a few beers now and then. Maybe a glass of wine sometimes, mostly because I am swayed by the health propganda.)

The press liked to push the point that Insys made a fentanyl-based drug, but I believe it has far more to do with Insys's efforts at making marijuana-based drugs[1][2]. If marijuana became widely available, their efforts at marijuana-based prescription drugs would likely have a smaller market.

[1] http://syndros.com/

[2] Cannabidiol in development http://www.insysrx.com/products/in-development

I don't know if he's responsible for the commercials that aired, but they were incredibly embarrassing. I suppose they can be quite effective against an uneducated electorate.