Great article from aphib over at iStink.
From Nova-X report: good read
May 4, 2017
Cannabis's No. 1 Opponent Waves the White Flag
By Michael A. Robinson
The foremost opponent of legal marijuana in the United States has effectively surrendered... not with a bang, but with a whimper.
I predicted earlier this year that President Donald Trump and his administration would expend no political real capital to go after cannabis. And despite a rash of negative public statements from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, I said that Trump already had given the green light to medical marijuana.
Here we almost two months later - and it looks like legal weed's Public Enemy No. 1 has already put up the white flag. In fact, two big revelations over the last week or so tell me that Sessions is going nowhere with his flat-Earth views on marijuana.
For starters, the bipartisan agreement on the $1.1 trillion omnibus budget forged in the last week protects the medical marijuana businesses.
Lawmakers slipped an extension of the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment into the budget agreement, which runs through Sept. 30. This provision bars the U.S. Department of Justice from receiving or using any funds to go after licensed medical marijuana operations in states (now 29, plus Washington, D.C.) where they've been legalized by voters or lawmakers.
Those protections, originally passed in 2015, were set to expire in late April.
With $0 in funds to enable tougher regulation of federal law, there's really no fight to be had.
Moreover, plenty of folks in Congress are now working to extend the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment beyond the next budget fight in September. That doesn't even take into account the handful of legislative proposals from both sides of the aisle already gaining some traction.
The second major revelation came during an April 26 Meet the Press interview.
You may recall I wrote on April 18 about U.S. Department of Homeland Security John F. Kelly's Meet the Press interview, where he called marijuana a nonfactor in the drug war. To me, it signaled that Sessions was a lone wolf in his anti-weed crusade.
The latest relevant Meet the Press interview was with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D). During the Sunday show, Hickenlooper revealed that he met with Sessions in person last week in Washington. The big takeaway: Sessions has no plans to go to war with medical marijuana.
"At one point he said, 'Well, you haven't seen us cracking down, have you?' He's got his hands full with heroin, methamphetamines, cocaine, other things that are more significant," said Hickenlooper, whose state legalized medical marijuana in 2000 and the recreational variety in 2012. "He's a pretty strong supporter of states being the laboratories of democracy. He's not going to encourage anyone to start a marijuana business... That being said, he didn't give me any reason to think he's going to come down and suddenly try to put everyone out of business."
These latest developments make some of the panic that followed Sessions' original anti-marijuana comments in February appear downright silly.
This should lead to a sigh of relief from growers and dispensaries, their investors, and other legal cannabis supporters.
Mexico Poised to Legalize
Amid the hoopla of news of Canada's full legalization of marijuana by July 1, 2018, many marijuana industry watchers missed something big.
This week legalization in Mexico hit its tipping point far faster than anyone was predicting as recently as last fall. Now, our neighbor to the south is just one step away from legalizing medical marijuana nationwide after a rapid change of heart on the part of politicians and citizens.
The Mexican medical cannabis market could be worth up to $2 billion within 10 years, according to data cited by Reuters.
The Mexican legislature's lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, earlier this week voted 371-7 to end prohibition of marijuana for medical purposes. The nation's Senate did the same late last year.
By all accounts, President Enrique Peña Neito - a former opponent of cannabis legalization - will sign medical legalization into law soon.
Once that happens, the country's health ministry will start designing rules and regulations for companies to legally grow, dispense, and perform research on marijuana for medical purposes.
Public and lawmaker sentiment reversed course rapidly in marijuana's favor late last year because of two court battles.
In August 2016, a Mexican federal court ruled that the family of an 8-year-old girl who suffered from severe epileptic seizures hourly could treat her with cannabis oils if they could acquire them. The court did not give any guidance on how the family could legally obtain it, however.
In November, Mexico's supreme court voted 4-1 that the nation's marijuana ban was unconstitutional.
There are no publicly listed marijuana companies operating in Mexico... yet. But you can be sure that a slew of startups will emerge.
Plus, we can be sure that many of those startups will be backed by or partner with successful U.S. and Canadian legal marijuana companies. It was just last week that I wrote you about how two Canadian companies have forged deals with Australian companies. Both are prominent in my new How to Make a Fast Fortune on Canada's Upcoming Total Legalization of Marijuana report.
Further, it was announced today that Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Cannabis Business Summit and Expo hosted by the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA). Fox has supported cannabis reform in Mexico as far back as 2009 - as both a way to tamp down that nation's drug wars and to increase business opportunities.
We'll be at the NCIA conference, too, in Oakland, Calif., June 12-14. We'll let you know what he has to say.
From Nova-X report: good read
May 4, 2017
Cannabis's No. 1 Opponent Waves the White Flag
By Michael A. Robinson
The foremost opponent of legal marijuana in the United States has effectively surrendered... not with a bang, but with a whimper.
I predicted earlier this year that President Donald Trump and his administration would expend no political real capital to go after cannabis. And despite a rash of negative public statements from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, I said that Trump already had given the green light to medical marijuana.
Here we almost two months later - and it looks like legal weed's Public Enemy No. 1 has already put up the white flag. In fact, two big revelations over the last week or so tell me that Sessions is going nowhere with his flat-Earth views on marijuana.
For starters, the bipartisan agreement on the $1.1 trillion omnibus budget forged in the last week protects the medical marijuana businesses.
Lawmakers slipped an extension of the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment into the budget agreement, which runs through Sept. 30. This provision bars the U.S. Department of Justice from receiving or using any funds to go after licensed medical marijuana operations in states (now 29, plus Washington, D.C.) where they've been legalized by voters or lawmakers.
Those protections, originally passed in 2015, were set to expire in late April.
With $0 in funds to enable tougher regulation of federal law, there's really no fight to be had.
Moreover, plenty of folks in Congress are now working to extend the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment beyond the next budget fight in September. That doesn't even take into account the handful of legislative proposals from both sides of the aisle already gaining some traction.
The second major revelation came during an April 26 Meet the Press interview.
You may recall I wrote on April 18 about U.S. Department of Homeland Security John F. Kelly's Meet the Press interview, where he called marijuana a nonfactor in the drug war. To me, it signaled that Sessions was a lone wolf in his anti-weed crusade.
The latest relevant Meet the Press interview was with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D). During the Sunday show, Hickenlooper revealed that he met with Sessions in person last week in Washington. The big takeaway: Sessions has no plans to go to war with medical marijuana.
"At one point he said, 'Well, you haven't seen us cracking down, have you?' He's got his hands full with heroin, methamphetamines, cocaine, other things that are more significant," said Hickenlooper, whose state legalized medical marijuana in 2000 and the recreational variety in 2012. "He's a pretty strong supporter of states being the laboratories of democracy. He's not going to encourage anyone to start a marijuana business... That being said, he didn't give me any reason to think he's going to come down and suddenly try to put everyone out of business."
These latest developments make some of the panic that followed Sessions' original anti-marijuana comments in February appear downright silly.
This should lead to a sigh of relief from growers and dispensaries, their investors, and other legal cannabis supporters.
Mexico Poised to Legalize
Amid the hoopla of news of Canada's full legalization of marijuana by July 1, 2018, many marijuana industry watchers missed something big.
This week legalization in Mexico hit its tipping point far faster than anyone was predicting as recently as last fall. Now, our neighbor to the south is just one step away from legalizing medical marijuana nationwide after a rapid change of heart on the part of politicians and citizens.
The Mexican medical cannabis market could be worth up to $2 billion within 10 years, according to data cited by Reuters.
The Mexican legislature's lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, earlier this week voted 371-7 to end prohibition of marijuana for medical purposes. The nation's Senate did the same late last year.
By all accounts, President Enrique Peña Neito - a former opponent of cannabis legalization - will sign medical legalization into law soon.
Once that happens, the country's health ministry will start designing rules and regulations for companies to legally grow, dispense, and perform research on marijuana for medical purposes.
Public and lawmaker sentiment reversed course rapidly in marijuana's favor late last year because of two court battles.
In August 2016, a Mexican federal court ruled that the family of an 8-year-old girl who suffered from severe epileptic seizures hourly could treat her with cannabis oils if they could acquire them. The court did not give any guidance on how the family could legally obtain it, however.
In November, Mexico's supreme court voted 4-1 that the nation's marijuana ban was unconstitutional.
There are no publicly listed marijuana companies operating in Mexico... yet. But you can be sure that a slew of startups will emerge.
Plus, we can be sure that many of those startups will be backed by or partner with successful U.S. and Canadian legal marijuana companies. It was just last week that I wrote you about how two Canadian companies have forged deals with Australian companies. Both are prominent in my new How to Make a Fast Fortune on Canada's Upcoming Total Legalization of Marijuana report.
Further, it was announced today that Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Cannabis Business Summit and Expo hosted by the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA). Fox has supported cannabis reform in Mexico as far back as 2009 - as both a way to tamp down that nation's drug wars and to increase business opportunities.
We'll be at the NCIA conference, too, in Oakland, Calif., June 12-14. We'll let you know what he has to say.
