The woefully biased mainstream media continues to publish anti-cannabis Fake News to discredit the legal industry. It also grossly exaggerates actual problems, like the vaping health issue.
This has been dubbed a “crisis” or even on “epidemic” by the irresponsible fearmongers of the mainstream media. This alleged “crisis” has now produced a total of 20 deaths.
In contrast, the Opioid Crisis kills more than 100 people per day in the U.S. The Alcohol Crisis kills more than 200 people per day in the U.S. (over 88,000 deaths per year). The Tobacco Crisis kills more than 1,300 people per day in the U.S. (480,000 deaths per year).
The anti-cannabis exaggerations of the mainstream media are despicable, particularly Big Media’s efforts to generate public hysteria over the vaping health problem. But the pseudo-science is simply absurd.
Such anti-cannabis fairy tales are still plentiful. Claiming that legalizing cannabis somehow increases deaths from the Opioid Crisis, despite plenty of real science showing that cannabis helps to decrease Opioid Deaths.
Then there is the especially reprehensible fairy tale that cannabis is (somehow) connected to gun massacres in the U.S. Really? And how many gun massacres have been committed by Canadians since Canada fully legalized cannabis nationally?
There continue to be the anti-cannabis fairy tales about supposed “dangers” associated with cannabis use. These have all been refuted by real science. Cannabis is safe.
It does not make people stupid. It does not impair “adolescent development”.
Then there were the Chicken Little warnings from the mainstream media that cannabis legalization itself would (somehow) cause harmful consequences. All fiction. Legalizing cannabis makes U.S. cities healthier.
The legal cannabis industry is under attack by political dinosaurs in the U.S. It is also under attack by shadowy anti-cannabis “public interest” groups that continue to lobby aggressively against cannabis legalization.
In both cases, these groups/individuals use the anti-cannabis fiction distributed by the mainstream media as ammunition to smear cannabis and the legal cannabis industry.
Then there is the general campaign to undermine the legal cannabis industry by the federal government. It starts with the stubborn refusal of the federal government to change the legal status of cannabis.
Cannabis is still legally equated with heroin. Completely absurd. Enough said about that.
However, federal Prohibition also undermines the legal cannabis industry in individual U.S. states 24/7. This starts with the fact that most legal cannabis companies don’t even have access to basic banking services in the United States.
Obviously, federal Prohibition is 100% responsible for the enormous cannabis black market in the United States. The size and scale of this cannabis black market is making it difficult for the legal cannabis industry to compete in most U.S. states. This is because most state governments continue to over-regulate and/or overtax the legal cannabis industry.
The FDA still hasn’t put in place industry regulations for CBD products, a full year after hemp legalization. The SAFE banking bill has been tortuously moving through Congress and is ultimately expected to be blocked by the Republican-controlled Senate.
It’s federal Prohibition that is also directly at the root of the current vaping health problem in the U.S. The vast majority of illnesses and deaths to date have come from black market vaping products. Even where legal products have been implicated, at the root of this has been careless or unscrupulous manufacturing processes imported from the black market.
Despite the vaping health problem being a product of Prohibition/the black market, many state governments are banning legal vaping products and forcing consumers to turn to the black market. Pathetic.
At the same time, there have also been self-inflicted wounds in the U.S. legal cannabis industry. The U.S. cannabis industry was just parodied by the irreverent adult cartoon, South Park because of how some legal cannabis companies have lobbied against home cultivation of cannabis.
This was tactically unwise and poor public relations. Home cultivation is no threat to the legal cannabis industry any more than (home) beer-making and wine-making has hurt the alcohol industry. People can grow their own vegetables, but most choose to buy them from a grocery store.
Then there was the recent revelation of the California cannabis company (Kushy Punch) that is alleged to have been operating two cannabis businesses: one fully legal, the other 100% black market.
If true, this would be a significant embarrassment to the U.S. cannabis industry. But it also would be a further indictment of cannabis Prohibition in the United States.
It is the U.S. federal government that has created a dual-market cannabis industry. One part is legal. The other larger part is still illegal.
How surprising is it that with the dual-market cannabis industry created in the United States that we would find a company working both halves of this market?
There are actual problems facing the U.S. cannabis industry. But they are the normal “growing pains” (no pun intended) that are found with any brand-new industry.
Beyond this, the problems facing the legal cannabis industry are problems that have been created by government. They are not problems inherently connected with cannabis commerce.
Legalized cannabis will continue to become widely used as medicine and continue to claim market share from the pharmaceutical industry. Legalized cannabis will take more and more market share as a recreational drug – as consumers flee the health perils associated with alcohol (and tobacco).
Legalized cannabis will continue to increase market share as a health supplement, nutritional supplement, or simply food product. The hemp plant is loaded with nutrients.
For cannabis investors, the politics of cannabis can (and probably will) continue to weigh over the U.S. cannabis industry over the short term. However, the economics of cannabis make this a long-term opportunity too enormous for investors to ignore.