US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

Weed being illegal on a federal level has had some interesting effects. Because of these laws, all legal weed has to be grown, processed, and retailed within a single state. So much industry and local employment has been created by the legal barriers in place.

It’s probably still a net positive to release the federal restriction, but I hope all these small/mid sized businesses don’t get gulped up by big tobacco or other mega corps

'Time for them to perform due diligence and refactor their operations to take advantage of the new legal landscape to retain competitive pricing inorder for' all these small/mid sized businesses don't get gulped up by big tobacco or other mega corps.

American corporations are great at retooling their business/supply chains for different products (see how quickly everyone moved into hard seltzers).

I do expect big tobacco to move in aggressively if weed is made legal.

Hasn’t really happened in Canada. I think a small-player alcohol company did move in, but only after the bubble popped.

Turns out legalization of a drug doesn’t lead to massive increases in consumption. Who knew.

Definitely kneecapped the black market though: most moved to the legal side and black market prices cratered.

Marijuana use has massively increased in the US as states have legalized it.

Users have doubled: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264862/cannabis-consumpt...

Use among users has also increased 20%: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/962353

20% increase in consumption isn’t exactly what I would call massive.

Looking at historic trends the point where pot was first legalized for recreational use isn’t obvious. If anything the long term upward tends started long before legalization which didn’t seem to have significant impact. https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...