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Business News/ Opinion / Columns/  Marijuana could actually help heal a ruptured United States

Marijuana could actually help heal a ruptured United States

The legalization of weed is puffing ahead on bipartisan support

On marijuana policy, Joe Biden could find common ground with Republicans

After five states—Arizona, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota—passed ballot measures for marijuana use last week, the drug will soon be legal in some form for 70% of the US population. A third of the country won’t even need a medical excuse. But that’s not the surprise. What’s more notable is that all of this happened without much of a public uproar. To be fair, there have been bigger concerns on Americans’ minds. But this is the moment that cannabis companies and their investors have been waiting for: to be considered a legitimate industry rather than a hot voting issue. From here, the goal is to make weed every bit as normal as junk food, wine and other vices long found in US stores.

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In order for the industry to flourish it needs the federal government’s help, and the prospects of that are suddenly looking better. Two-thirds of US adults are in favour of marijuana legalization—91% if you include those who support it at a minimum for medicinal purposes, according to Pew Research Center. That’s more than the number of Americans who support abortion rights or who think human activity contributes to climate change.

The partisan gap in attitudes toward pot is also shrinking, with more than half of Republicans saying it should be legalized. In the reliably red state of Mississippi, Initiative 65—the less-restrictive of two medical marijuana proposals that were on its ballot—was criticized by Governor Tate Reeves as too “liberal" for “non-stoners", and it still passed by 74%. As Joe Biden takes office in January and the makeup of Congress continues to reflect a divided nation, marijuana may end up being the one issue almost everyone can agree on.

The increasing support for pot in red states bodes well for a Senate vote on the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act, which would allow financial institutions to legally do business with marijuana companies. It would be one of the most constructive developments for the industry short of legalizing weed at the federal level.

Cannabis companies have reason to be hopeful that a new administration will also usher in other changes, such as reclassifying or excluding marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). De-scheduled it would let states decide how to handle pot, which may be more palatable to conservatives than trying to change federal laws, Isaac Boltansky and Merrill Ross, analysts for Compass Point Research & Trading LLC, wrote in an October report. Marijuana is currently considered a Schedule 1 drug, alongside heroin, in a category reserved for narcotics with the highest potential for abuse and dependence and with no accepted medical use. Examples of Schedule 2 substances are cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine and oxycodone—some of them at the root of America’s opioid addiction crisis. For cannabis proponents, that just doesn’t add up.

Removing cannabis from the CSA would provide a benefit to companies’ income statements. The industry is also asking the federal government to allow interstate commerce between states that have legalized. Right now, if a company has a plant in, say, Colorado and wants to transport some of its product to a dispensary in Montana, that’s trafficking—a crime.

Some of the biggest challenges in getting licensed weed businesses off the ground are around the regulatory hurdles and costly process of having to work piecemeal in expanding around the US. That’s helped the illicit weed market maintain a competitive advantage by undercutting prices. In California, where marijuana can be legally purchased, illegal transactions are still estimated to make up the majority of sales.

It’s no wonder that pot stocks, at one point the darlings of the market, have lost their exuberance this year. The so-called cannabis index has dropped 38%.

An unintended effect of squelching the market may be to drive cash-strapped cannabis companies into the arms of food and beverage giants, which are preparing to pounce on pot once laws become more lax. For brewers and tobacco companies, it may be the most promising growth avenue. That said, a bunch of upstarts getting swallowed by behemoths would seem to go against Democratic legislators’ efforts to level competitive playing fields through more aggressive antitrust enforcement.

Everyday consumer products—such as drinks containing THC, the psychoactive chemical in cannabis—are a key way for cannabis companies to target a wider customer base than pot smokers.

Bit by bit, things are moving in a positive direction for the industry, albeit slowly. At the national level, if Biden is looking for common ground with Republicans, marijuana of all things seems like a reasonable place to start. The year 2020 truly is bizarre.

Tara Lachapelle is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of entertainment and telecommunications

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