By the nature of simply being an issue, you always have multiple power bases and advocacy groups staked out around a bureaucracy designed to do no more than it's forced to. If you have a better way to resolve issues than with this kind of postured negotiation, that would be wonderful, but it feels like it would also be pretty darn novel.
Sierra Club seems to be pandering to their donor base.
You’re right the legislature and ballot initiatives did not take extreme positions, but those were brought forth by political groups that took the position of legalizing cannabis for adults full-stop. They’ve made incremental progress by supporting broadly acceptable and reasonable legislation towards those goals, but they made concessions to win broad support.
I don’t see how the Sierra Club is different. That said, I would like to see our political debates and process lose the gamesmanship.