大选过后大麻合法化提速，或将快速成为新兴产业

在已经实现康乐用大麻合法化的州，超过20%的美国人在大选日过后的第二天清晨投了一票。

至少有6个州已进行了公投，在某种程度上实现了成人用或康乐用大麻的合法化。其中加州、马萨诸塞州和内华达州已投票实现了成人用或康乐用大麻的合法化，而阿肯色州、佛罗里达州和北达科他州已允许使用医用大麻。（截至上周四早上，缅因州有关康乐用大麻合法化的公投仍十分胶着）。如今，美国已有29个州实现了医用大麻的合法化，而且至少有7个州存在合法的康乐用大麻市场。

未来4年内，合法大麻行业的全美年销售额将达到约220亿美元。

与此同时，人们对唐纳德·特朗普获胜可能带来的影响的担忧并非是空穴来风。随着越来越多的州对大麻合法化投赞成票，尚未就任的新一届政府是否会违背选民的意愿？特朗普此前曾声援医用大麻的合法化，但是即将上任的副总统迈克·朋斯却是此事的反对者。持反对意见的还包括新泽西州长克里斯·克里斯蒂以及前纽约市市长鲁迪·朱利亚尼，而他们都是特朗普最信任的顾问。

医药政策联盟执行总监伊森·纳德尔曼在发表在《华盛顿邮报》的声明中表示：“我对唐纳德·特朗普当选下一任美国总统后的前景感到异常担忧。”大麻合法化倡导组织Marijuana Majority迅速开展了选后请愿活动，呼吁特朗普废除联邦政府的大麻禁令，并兑现其承诺，尊重各州在制定大麻法律方面的权利。

《财富》杂志联系了特朗普大选活动的发言人，请他谈谈对最近实现大麻合法化的各州以及整个大麻行业的看法。我们将在收到反馈之后对本文进行更新。

然而，与此同时，大麻行业企业主和投资者对本周新一轮大麻合法化公投的反应异常兴奋。

投资者蜂拥而至

大麻公司Privateer Holdings的联合创始人兼首席执行官布伦登·肯尼迪告诉《财富》，他看到人们对这一行业的兴趣呈现出了爆炸式的增长。他指出，随着全国大麻合法化运动不断攻城拔寨，“市场生怕错过这一机遇”。肯尼迪说：“3-6个月前，有一些公司便开始与我们接洽此事，但它们在一年前是从来不会考虑在这一行业投资的，而且坦白来讲，6年前，我们无法想象这些公司会在这一行业投资，但它们如今都进来了。”

加州——大麻行业的中心

New Frontier Data创始人兼首席执行官吉亚达·德止卡GiadhaDeCarcer：

DeCarcer的New Frontier公司与ArcView Group开展合作，发布评估新生合法大麻行业规模和范围的年度报告。周四，双方联合发布的声明预测，到2020年，仅加州一州合法大麻的销售额就可能达到76亿美元。她表示，加州拥有3800多万人口，如今是“合法大麻行业的新中心”。她还指出，“加州在医用大麻使用方面的历史最为悠久，而且拥有最大的大麻消费群体，因此，加州的大麻销售额预计将在美国各州中独占鳌头。此外，加州技术和营销专长也将极大地融入国内外大麻行业。”

ArcView Group首席执行官特罗伊·戴顿在声明中提到，加州投票实现康乐用大麻合法化的举措将成为“备受全球关注的投票”，也将为大麻行业带来“颠覆性的改变”。

两党的共同关注点

总部位于加州奥克兰的连锁药房Harborside Health Center的联合创始人（兼ArcView总裁）史蒂夫·迪安杰罗对《财富》杂志说，他已为加州期待已久的这一决定做好了准备，他打算进行业务扩张，包括进军种植业，同时在加州开设新的Harborside药房（公司目前在奥克兰和圣何塞设有店面）。

他还提到，一些已经投票实现大麻合法化的州，例如阿肯色和佛罗里达，还为即将继任的共和党总统特朗普投了大量的票。“唯一的解释便是，相当大一部分特朗普的拥趸——不管是共和党红区选民还是南方州选民——都是为了投票赞成大麻改革。而且，如果你从全局角度来审视昨天所发生的事情，我想你会发现，大麻改革是能够超越两党界限，并让两党选民达成共识的关注点之一。”

为大约100个大麻行业客户提供法律服务的旧金山律师亨利·怀科斯基也对此表示首肯，他表示，“我认为，不管[特朗普]政府都将由哪些成员组成，但他们都必须意识到，美国民众不再认为大麻是一种有害药物。越来越多的人通常都会赞成大麻的合法化，[联邦政府]应该把时间和金钱花在更值得做的事情上面，而不是反对使用大麻。”

新法规的到来

怀科斯基预计，由于康乐用大麻的种植和销售将合法化，那么加州立法机关将为该州的合法大麻市场制定更加全面的法规。

医用大麻药房运营商Columbia Care（在亚利桑那州、马萨诸塞州和纽约州设有门店的首席执行官尼古拉斯·维塔还表示，他认为选民表达了“联邦政府应放宽管制”，并“考虑采取长期、机遇数据的分析流程，来决定各利益相关方所称的优点、结果、风险和顾虑是否已得到证实或未得到证实，然后制定知情的联邦政策”，进而重新制定联邦政府现行的大麻法规。大麻目前被列为第1级管制药物。

纷纷打开“绿灯”

南加州大麻种植公司CannDescent首席执行官阿德里安·塞尔丁今年早些时候从投资者手中筹集了650万美元，以便为位于加州沙漠温泉地区占地9,600平方英尺的种植设施提供资金，而且该公司计划在未来几年内修建更多的设施。在最近经历了筹资活动之后，塞尔丁表示，他预计加州64号法案的批准将推动该行业一路“亮起绿灯”，并掀起新一轮投资热。

他对《财富》说，主要银行一直都害怕接受从事大麻业务的客户，因为大麻在联邦层面仍是违法的。他表示，“在这一问题上，联邦政府不会让银行将加州这样大的经济体拒之门外。这种做法是不可持续的。”塞尔丁还表示，“大量的资金即将到来。在我看来，64号法案的通过是最终获得银行支持和撤销禁令的重要砝码，假以时日，它将开启所有的机构资本。”（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：詹妮

More than 20% of Americans waking up the morning after Election Day did so in a state that has legalized recreational cannabis.

At least six states voted to legalize marijuana in some form, with California, Massachusetts, and Nevada voting to legalize adult-use, or recreational cannabis, while Arkansas, Florida, and North Dakota legalized medical pot. (Maine’s vote on recreational cannabis was still too close to call as of Thursday morning.) Now the US has 29 states with legal medical marijuana, and at least seven states have legal recreational pot markets.

The legal marijuana industry could generate roughly $22 billion in annual sales across the US within four years.

At the same time, there is some cause for concern over what Donald Trump’s surprise victory could mean. Would the president-elect’s administration go against the will of voters in an ever-growing number of states? Trump has previously voiced support for legalized medical marijuana, but Vice President-elect Mike Pence is an opponent of cannabis legalization. So are New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani—both of them close advisors to Trump.

“The prospect of Donald Trump as our next president concerns me deeply,” Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said in a statement to The Washington Post, citing Pence, Christie and Giuliani. The legalization advocacy group Marijuana Majority quickly launched a post-election petition calling on Trump to end the federal government’s marijuana prohibition and to honor his pledge to respect states’ rights with regard to marijuana laws.

Fortune reached out to a Trump campaign spokesperson for comment on the latest states to legalize cannabis, and the industry in general, and we will update this article with any response.

Meanwhile, though, business owners and investors in the cannabis industry reacted enthusiastically to the latest wave of marijuana legalization votes this week:

Investors Jumping In

Brendan Kennedy, co-founder and CEO of cannabis company Privateer Holdings: Kennedy’s firm Privateer was the industry’s first to raise more than $100 million in total financing. Now, he told Fortune, he’s seeing an explosion of interest. There is, he says, “a fear of missing out” as legalization efforts across the country continue to open new markets. “Three to six months ago, we started being approached by firms who would have never looked at making an investment in this industry a year ago [and who], frankly, we would have never imagined making an investment in this industry six years ago,” Kennedy said. “But, they’re all in the industry now.”

California the Epicenter of Cannabis Industry

GiadhaDeCarcer, founder and CEO of New Frontier Data: DeCarcer’s New Frontier partners with the ArcView Group to produce an annual report estimating the size and scope of the nascent legal marijuana industry. On Tuesday, a joint release from New Frontier and ArcView projected that California’s legal marijuana market could reach $7.6 billion in annual sales by 2020 alone. California, with its population of more than 38 million people, is now “the new epicenter of the legal cannabis industry,” she said, adding, “As both the oldest medical cannabis state and the largest cannabis consumer population, sales in California are projected to dwarf those of any other market. Additionally, the integration of California’s technology and marketing expertise will be enormously into the cannabis industry both domestically and internationally.”

Troy Dayton, CEO of ArcView Group, said in a statement that California’s vote to legalize recreational cannabis will be the “vote heard ’round the world” and will be creating a “seismic shift.”

A ‘Bipartisan’ Issue

Steve Deangelo, co-founder of Oakland-based dispensary Harborside Health Center (and president of ArcView) told Fortune that he prepared for California’s long-expected decision by planning a business expansion that includes expanding into cultivation while also planning new Harborside locations in California (the company currently operates locations in Oakland and San Jose).

He also pointed out that some of the states that voted to legalize cannabis, such as Arkansas and Florida, also voted in huge numbers for Republican president-elect Donald Trump. “The only way that could happen is for a very significant number of Trump voters—red voters, Southern voters—to vote in favor of cannabis reform. And, if you look at what happened yesterday as a whole, I think what you see is that cannabis reform was the one issue that was able to cut across party lines and unite voters in a bipartisan consensus.”

Henry Wykowski, San Francisco-based attorney, represents roughly 100 cannabis industry clients, also agreed, adding, “I think that, regardless of who makes up the [Trump] Administration, they have to realize that the population of the United States no longer thinks that cannabis is a bad drug. More people than not are in favor of its legalization, and there’s a lot better things to do with [the federal government’s] time and money than to pursue an agenda against cannabis.”

New Regulations Coming

Wykowski, a former Justice Department prosecutor, expects California lawmakers will produce “more well-defined regulations” for the state’s legal cannabis market now that recreational pot will be legal to grow and sell.

Nicholas Vita, CEO of medical marijuana dispensary operator Columbia Care, a company operates medical dispensaries in Arizona, Massachusetts, and New York, also said he thinks that the votes show “the need for the federal government to take a step back” and “consider adopting a long-term, data-based analytical process to determine whether or not the merits and the observations and the risks and the concerns that different stakeholders have are validated or invalidated, and to really come up with an informed federal policy” that would reshape the federal government’s current regulations on marijuana, which is currently listed as a Schedule 1 drug.

A ‘Green’ Rush Is Coming

Adrian Sedlin, CEO of Southern California cannabis-growing operation CannDescent, earlier this year raised $6.5 million from investors to help fund a new, 9,600-square-feet cultivation facility in Desert Hot Springs, Calif., with plans to open more facilities in the area over the next few years. Having recently gone through the process of raising money, Sedlin said he expected the approval of California’s Prop 64 will “make that ‘Green Rush’ accelerate,” opening up the industry to a wave of new investments.

“There is no way the federal government is going to allow an economy as large as California to remain unbanked on this issue. It’s not a tenable position,” he told Fortune, referring to the fact that major banks have been afraid to take on cannabis business clients because the drug remains illegal on the federal level. Sedlin added: “The big money is about to come in. Prop 64 passing, to me, is the large domino that allows banking and de-scheduling to finally happen in a matter of time that is then going to open up all of the institutional capital.”