VIDEO: Weekly Weed Report (03-24-22)

Welcome to my latest “Weekly Weed Report” video presentation. Below are edited excerpts.

Lights, camera… marijuana! Celebrity entrepreneurs are jumping aboard the marijuana bandwagon. On an increasing basis, glitzy entertainers are lending their cachet to the marijuana industry.

Here’s a list of the celebrities that have launched marijuana businesses: Willie Nelson, Tommy Chong, Martha Stewart, Snoop Dog, John Legend, Jim Belushi, Seth Rogen, Whoopi Goldberg, Mike Tyson, Melissa Etheridge, Montel Williams, Chelsea Handler, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rob Gronkowski, and Anita Thompson, the widow of my journalistic hero, Hunter S. Thompson. That’s only a partial list, and it gets longer with each passing day.

But you don’t have to be famous to reap profits from the marijuana boom. It’s possible for everyday Americans to get rich from pot industry growth.

Let’s look at the latest news and trends in the cannabis industry, from the perspective of average individual investors. Think of my report as “pot news you can use.” I also examine the ancillary industry of psychedelics.

Kentucky. The Kentucky House of Representatives last week passed legislation to legalize medical marijuana in the state. The legislation now heads to the Senate.

State Rep. Jason Nemes (R), who sponsored the measure, stated: “This is Kentucky grown, Kentucky processed, Kentucky tested. Grown by Kentucky farmers on Kentucky land with Kentucky seeds for our Kentucky brothers and sisters and the Kentucky patients from across the Commonwealth.”

Massachusetts. The Worcester, Massachusetts Human Rights Commission reported last week that it’s considering a proposal to endorse decriminalizing psychedelics.

Medical research increasingly confirms the efficacy of psychedelics to treat physical and mental ailments. Entrepreneurs, consumers and investors are jumping aboard the psychedelics movement, an accelerating trend that’s reminiscent of the legal and societal normalization of marijuana.

Read This Story: Lucy in the Sky with…Profits

More than a dozen state and local governments are striving to decriminalize psychedelics. From Massachusetts to California, advocates are making significant progress in expanding a national movement that has already lifted restrictions on these substances in many jurisdictions.

Worcester is only the latest among several Massachusetts cities that have taken up the issue of legalizing psychedelics. The Massachusetts cities of Easthampton, Northampton, Somerville, and Cambridge also have decriminalized psychedelics.

New York State. New York legislative leaders recently filed budgetary legislation that allows marijuana businesses to take state tax deductions that are widely available to other non-cannabis industries, despite the continuing federal ban.

Both the Assembly and Senate budget measures, which are expected to pass in advance of an April 1 deadline, strive to create an exemption that would enable canna-businesses to take the deductions as the state prepares to launch its adult-use market.

Vermont. State regulators approved marijuana rules and have begun accepting applications for cannabis business pre-qualification status.

Medical and recreational marijuana is legal in the Green Mountain state. The state wants to prioritize small cannabis growers and plans to initially only grant licenses for indoor operations no larger than 1,000 square feet.

The federal government. The U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) recently reported that federal marijuana prosecutions continue to decline as more states enact legalization.

In 2012, when the trend toward state legalization started to gather steam, marijuana criminal cases were top among drug prosecutions. As of the end of 2021, they were at the bottom (see my video for additional details).

There were 996 federal marijuana trafficking cases last year, according to the USSC. Those cannabis arrests represent only 5.7% of the total drug-related cases that when through the federal justice system in 2021.

Thanks to state-level legalization, the so-called “War on Drugs,” at least from the perspective of marijuana, is a bust.

I’ve just described trends that are generating tailwinds for the marijuana and psychedelics sectors. Every time a state or locality legalizes these psychotropic substances, it spawns more companies, products, customers, publicly traded companies, and investor profits. Looking for the best opportunities? Click here for details.

John Persinos is the editor-in-chief of Marijuana Investing Daily.

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