April 20th has long been the unofficial international cannabis holiday. The story behind the date isn’t really that exciting… it’s based around some high school kids in California who would smoke marijuana at 4:20pm every day.
4:20 evolved to 4/20 (April 20th), then to just 420. Today, saying “four-twenty” is the internationally recognized code-word for cannabis.
As silly as that all is, there is something quite serious happening in the United States around marijuana. Of the 50 states that make up the USA, only four of them completely outlaw the plant – Idaho, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.
Keep in mind that marijuana is illegal on the federal level and is classified as a schedule one drug by the Drug Enforcement Agency.
As a schedule one drug, marijuana is considered to have no medical use by the Federal Government. Meanwhile, 46 State Governments say otherwise.
Think about that for a second. If we combine the populations of those four states where cannabis is illegal and subtract that number from the rest of the 46 states, it looks like this:
Idaho – 1,700,000 pop.
South Dakota – 860,000 pop.
Nebraska – 1,920,000 pop.
Kansas – 2,900,000 pop.
Total population of states where cannabis is illegal = approximately 7,380,000 pop.
The total population of the entire US is approximately 329,000,000
329,000,000 – 7,380,000 = 321,620,000
That means that there are over 320 million US citizens – that’s 97% of the US population – living in a location where cannabis is not completely illegal.
How long will it take for the US government to throw in the towel and make cannabis legal?
It could be sooner than we think.
Here are some recent notable stories and statistics to support this coming change:
- 61% of Americans think marijuana should be legalized.
- 70% of millennials (the next large group of voters) think that marijuana should be legalized.
- One of the worlds largest alcohol companies just bought 10% of the worlds largest cannabis company.(***Queue the lobbyists.)
- Former Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, just joined the board of a cannabis company, after he spent years in government office opposing legalization.Now he can return back to his bros still in office (while he positions himself in the private market) to change policy.
- “Last week, U.S. Sen. Cory Garder said Trump promised him he’d respect states’ rights when it comes to legal pot and would support a federal-level change to bring consistency.”
- Marijuana-based epilepsy drug could soon get federal approval.
- More and more athletes are using cannabis for a variety of reasons.
As you can see, things are getting interesting.
Whether you agree, disagree, or just don’t care… the reality is that something has got to change. The questions is: When?
…And, of course, are you positioned to profit from this change?
