US lawmakers are set to vote on Friday for the first time to federally decriminalize cannabis.
The bill set for a vote in the US House of Representatives is called the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or the "MORE Act." It would end criminal penalties for anyone who sells cannabis in states where that's legal, decriminalize the use of cannabis throughout the US, and formally allow states to chart their own course in establishing commercial marijuana sales.
While the legislation is expected to clear the Democratic-controlled House before lawmakers go home for the winter break, it's unlikely to make it past the GOP-controlled Senate. It also faces an uphill battle during the next Congress, when Democrats will have a narrower majority in the House.
Despite the slim prospects for the bill to become law, it's clear that it's a strong signal of how far the US has come on the issue of cannabis reform.
That growing acceptance could help turn cannabis into a $100 billion market, by revenue, in the next ten years, according to analysts at Cowen. The analysts projected growth in legal sales and illicit sales to give a picture of what the total market could look like in the US by 2030 if marijuana is federally legalized.
Their projection assumes that cannabis will become federally legal at some point in the US.
Results from a recent Gallup poll show that 68% of Americans support marijuana legalization. Among 18 to 29-year-olds, that figure rises to 79%.
And, where cannabis reform is on the ballot, voters seem to overwhelmingly favor it. Five states legalized cannabis on November 3, including the important East Coast market of New Jersey.
Once these laws go into effect, over two-thirds of Americans will have some form of legal access to marijuana, whether medical or recreational.
Some activists and cannabis industry experts say it's a matter of when, not if, the US federal government finally takes action on marijuana decriminalization or legalization, whether it's a version of the MORE Act that becomes law or a different piece of legislation.
But cannabis companies, like Curaleaf and Green Thumb Industries, aren't waiting for the federal government to capture the massive revenues from selling marijuana in states that have legalized the drug for adults.
Joseph Bayern, the incoming CEO of Curaleaf, told Business Insider in a recent interview that while the House vote on the MORE Act was encouraging, he was keeping his business focused on the state level.
"Our perspective is that total federal decriminalization is probably a little further off," he said.
"There are not many issues this country agrees on like they do with cannabis," Ben Kovler, the CEO of the Illinois-based cannabis company Green Thumb Industries, told Business Insider. "It seems to be pretty universal."
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