Saturday, December 12, 2015

Fastest growing? Well, it tops somebody's list, despite Medical MJ Mark's foot dragging dance, vs let it grow progressive states such as Washington's "This bud's for you" policy (if you buy it from state-owned stores or from a handful of tightly licensed and highly taxed licensed stores).

Titled, "7 Fastest-Growing Industries to Invest in for 2016," one might anticipate No. 1 on the item's "growing" list, and well, yes:

1. Legal Marijuana

“The legal cannabis industry has been growing at a spectacular rate for the last few years,” said Derek A. Peterson, president and CEO of Terra Tech, which works to create and market environmentally friendly agricultural equipment for commercial and retail markets.

[...] An early 2015 report from ArcView Market Research found that the U.S. market for legal cannabis increased 74 percent in 2014 to 2.7 billion. In 2013, that number was only 1.5 billion. According to ArcView, legal marijuana is the fastest-growing industry in the U.S.

Peterson said that a positive shifting perception on marijuana has helped the legal marijuana industry. “The government’s legislative bodies are becoming more aware of their constituents’ stances on cannabis, which are increasingly supportive,” he said.

For 2016, he expects growth in the industry to continue at a compounding rate as it has been doing over the past few years. “Plus, next year we should see at least one other state successfully pass a legalization initiative, which will further expand the market,” he added.

Peterson’s tip for investors: “While there are a number of lucrative opportunities for investing in the cannabis industry, those looking to do so should conduct significant due diligence [...] However, it has proven to show several recession-proof characteristics, which can be a decent hedge in someone’s portfolio.”

One perception is that there is exceptional opportunity to generate wealth by being favored in any limited growth-trial scenario, so Minnesotans should pay attention to who got what via the limitation of first to market growing opportunity in our state.

This link
On a different note, for the holiday season, this online item, where presumably the equivalent of an advent calendar - or doing a "twelve days of Christmas" version might also be marketed by lengthening the manifold. As with those calendars with the chocolates behind the cardboard "doors," each the same flavor, but differently molded. Presumably if you go online to a Washington or Colorado bud shop's website you will fine more than twelve varietal choices, indeed more than an advent 25, so that each bowl-of-the-day can be a trial experience of its own. Full Legalization? It seems the wave of the future but with some federal adaptation where dinosaurs of state legislatures can fight extinction by retooling their approach, hopefully with curbing in parallel the all-to-easy authorities' low-effort snitch generation pool opportunity the "War on Drugs" penalty structure handed such authorities, on a gold platter. Plus the forfeiture laws concerning marijuana disappear with legalization, and that was a cash flow to police budgets wherever forfeiture sale proceeds did not go to general funds.

__________UPDATE_________
Some links of interest, in no particular order: Strib, stopthedrugwar.org, Rolling Stone, here, whitehouse.gov, N.Y. Times, here, here, here and here (some of the better reporting), SAM, leafscience, ABC News and Yahoo on the Canadian Liberal Party win, here re stock valuation, Motley Fool, tax impact, Soros - see also zerohedge, and Guardian from 2013. As legalization grows, should we pity the privatized prison industrial complex, now having to house dangerous felons as an inmate majority instead of benign pot heads, in order to profit obscenely off the public feeding trough accorded them? Last, if you want to read only one item, try this one. Especially if you are a private sector can do things better libertarian. Related to that, this private outlet link.

_________FURTHER UPDATE_________
The Washington State Green Buddha shop's situation and argument online, here, here and here for example, is interesting in showing how the state's several medical marijuana firms are being bottlenecked into a new less diverse arrangement, with Green Buddha having suspended business while a license application under the new regime is pending.