This past Saturday morning I took a run through Harvard University. I had never seen the campus, but it was exactly how I’d expect it to be, except for one thing…
I started running down the path on the bank of the Charles River and eventually ran the entire perimeter of both the main campus and the sports complexes. The scenery was mostly brick buildings, ivy covered walls, and fancy wrought iron gates.
Geese walked across huge lawns, turkeys strolled down sidewalks, and college students were everywhere enjoying one of the last warm mornings for the year.
I felt like I was in an opening scene of a teenage-cult-movie about some ivy league school.
However, there was one thing that surprised me… People were smoking marijuana everywhere.
Now, I hope you don’t think I’m some cannabis virgin that has never seen someone puff on a joint. Being around marijuana, for me, is like being around beer. It’s a non-event that I don’t even give a second thought about.
But, this was different.
As I was running, I kept getting whiffs of pot. I ran just under ten miles and I smelled it nearly the entire time.
I don’t want to exaggerate here. It’s not like the entire Harvard campus had a layer of smoke hovering around. The truth is that the vast majority of people I saw were not smoking anything.
But the number of people I did see seemed more than anywhere else I’ve been – and that’s saying something! I guess it just appeared to be a bit odd that so many people would be openly consuming the plant in broad daylight, on the campus of one of the most prestigious schools in the world.
The interesting part is what these people were doing while they were using. Most of them looked like they were reading or doing homework. Some had blankets spread out on the lawn with a full array of books and a laptop. Others were sitting on a bench with headphones on and writing in a folder.
I’m not sharing this to make a statement that this is a good thing or a bad thing. It was just an observation that I found very surprising. Everyone just seemed so open about it.
Whether you like it or not, this is something we should all get used to. Cannabis is going to be a bigger and bigger part of our culture as time goes on – and I mean that on a worldwide scale.
In fact, the most recognizable brand in the world announced today that it was exploring making a cannabis based drink. That’s right, Coca-Cola announced that it was looking into diving into the marijuana game.
Right, wrong, or indifferent, this is happening. Investing in cannabis may be one of the biggest opportunities we’ll ever see.
With most major investments, there is an uncertainty about the adaptation of the actual product. For example… think about artificial intelligence, driverless cars, virtual reality, gene editing, robotics, or any of the numerous ground breaking technologies out there. All of these things will be huge in the future. However, we don’t know today exactly who or how they will all be used. And we also don’t know how long it will take for the public to adapt to using these technologies.
Not cannabis. We already know that millions of people throughout the world use it. Most use it illegally, but they still consume marijuana one way or another.
There is noting that has to be ‘proven’ about cannabis from a consumption standpoint. There is a robust black market that already exists.
Now that the market is changing to be legal, you don’t have to be Pablo Escobar to profit.
