Re:America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry
by bastawhiz on Wednesday March 07, 2018 @11:49PM
(#16542354)
It makes sense to do what they're doing right now: get legalization done at the state level. If the federal government lifted restrictions tomorrow, state-level prohibition still applies in 21 states. 21 of the 29 states where marijuana is legal are medical-only.
If you legalize it at the state level, you create a new market. Nobody is shipping weed in--crossing state lines with marijuana is, as it turns out, frowned upon--so you've got a total (pardon the pun) green field opportunity. There's no incumbent businesses to compete with.
If weed was legalized by the federal government tomorrow, most of the remaining cannabis prohibition laws at the state level would fall away in a few months' time. You could then ship weed across state lines, though, which would mean that large California and Colorado growers would begin pumping weed into these new markets far faster than a fresh startup ever could.
If you're someone with money, it makes FAR more sense to lobby at the state level rather than the federal level. And they are, seeing as more than half of the country has some form of legal weed.
If you legalize it at the state level, you create a new market. Nobody is shipping weed in--crossing state lines with marijuana is, as it turns out, frowned upon--so you've got a total (pardon the pun) green field opportunity. There's no incumbent businesses to compete with.
If weed was legalized by the federal government tomorrow, most of the remaining cannabis prohibition laws at the state level would fall away in a few months' time. You could then ship weed across state lines, though, which would mean that large California and Colorado growers would begin pumping weed into these new markets far faster than a fresh startup ever could.
If you're someone with money, it makes FAR more sense to lobby at the state level rather than the federal level. And they are, seeing as more than half of the country has some form of legal weed.