Big tobacco is coming for legal marijuana

It’s no coincidence that in 2018 Altria, which owns the Marlboro brand, invested $1.8 billion in a cannabis company and $12.8 billion in JUUL, a nicotine vape product
Boston Globe (US)
Thursday, April 8, 2021

marlboro marijuanaBig Tobacco has been planning for this moment for decades. A 1983 industry list titled New Product Ideas, made public as part of a court settlement, reveals that tobacco companies even then were anticipating the opportunity to blend marijuana into cigarettes if the government legalized cannabis. Now tobacco behemoths are pouring billions of dollars into the new legal marijuana industry. We don’t have to let them. Announcing a comprehensive bill to legalize marijuana, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said, “We don’t want the big tobacco companies and the big liquor companies to swoop in and take over.” Tobacco companies are convicted racketeers who knowingly misled the public with false claims about their products for decades.