Candi CdeBaca voted to legalize the free sale of marijuana in Colorado four years ago because she thought it would be good for her Denver neighborhood. She hoped that when Colorado became the first state in the nation to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana in 2014 it would not only keep people out of court, but also open up a legitimate means of earning a living. Today she would vote differently. “We have just swapped one kind of drug dealer for another,” said CdeBaca. All legalization has done is open the door to a takeover by corporate interests.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio supports Governor Andrew Cuomo's pledge to legalize recreational marijuana, but he doesn't want the the market to be overrun by big corporations when cannabis prohibition is repealed. "We have an industry that is just licking its chops, waiting to come in and corporatize marijuana—to do exactly what the tobacco industry did with cigarettes, to do exactly what the pharmaceutical industry did with things like oxycontin. What we need [to do] is legalize marijuana without corporatized marijuana," Mayor De Blasio told Bill Maher. To prevent that from happening, the mayor wants to hand the market over to former victims of cannabis prohibition—people who were arrested and imprisoned for marijuana-related offsenses.

Cannabis companies are positioning themselves for the greater likelihood that federal cannabis restrictions will be loosened significantly. Sales are already booming. Cannabis sales hit $20 billion last year — a 50 percent jump over 2019. Legalization continues to spread across the country, with more than one-third of Americans now living in states where marijuana is fully legal. “There's no stopping the industry now,” said Andrew Kline, who recently joined the law firm Perkins Coie after serving as public policy director for the National Cannabis Industry Association. “The bigger players are going to be interested in acquiring smaller companies and becoming multi-state operators or expanding their footprint in different states.”

If you think two or three powerful companies owning and controlling the sales of all regulated marijuana sounds like a good thing, you can click away from this article. But if the thought of a market controlled by Marijuamazon, Canna-uber, or Weedbook (excuse me, Weedaverse) is unsettling to you, I want to introduce you to a valuable concept: antitrust laws. As the power grab for control of the multibillion-dollar industry heats up, consumers and patients need antitrust protection. By applying the concepts of antitrust law to all federal cannabis reform now, we can avoid the creation of national monopolies before it’s too late and create a diverse and fair marijuana market instead. (See also: Schumer gives update on federal marijuana legalization and banking in meeting with equity advocates)

Learn how lessening the barriers for small farmers while raising them for large companies can help to steer legal cannabis markets in a more sustainable and equitable direction based on principles of community empowerment, social justice, fair(er) trade and sustainable development.

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Through manipulating trust and exploiting public ignorance, cannabis charlatans – new and old – are trying to construct corporate empires, some of which appear to be based on corruption, collusion and exploitation. Without transparency, credibility and integrity from the get-go, the equitable growth and sustainability of the South African cannabis community stands to be sacrificed purely for the sake of profit. In 2018 the Constitutional Court ruled that the prohibition of cultivating, possessing and consuming cannabis in private in South Africa was unconstitutional. Since then, much has been happening around cannabis. Unfortunately, the bulk of this action has been based on a misunderstanding of what both the new and developing laws mean, creating a great deal of uncertainty.

It’s been five years since the Canadian government legalized and regulated non-medical cannabis cultivation, commerce, and consumption. California is ahead of us by two years, having followed a similar experiment in 2016 when it legalized recreational cannabis. Today, California and Canada are facing similar challenges though they have adopted vastly different regulations. The two jurisdictions offer an interesting contrast in how regulatory frameworks can support or undermine a nascent legal cannabis industry. Evidence from the past five years suggests that the regulations have failed to provide equitable access to the industry and develop balanced tax structures. Legalization in Canada and California also remains hampered by the legacy of global cannabis prohibition.

Established medical cannabis companies could be looking to set their foot in Malta’s flegdling recreational cannabis market, according to sources. Releaf, the NGO that led the campaign to legalise recreational cannabis, fear that the sacking of the Authority for Responsible Use of Cannabis’s first director could lead to the dealer-driven black economy for cannabis poised for a takeover “an equally profit-driven market run by a few friends in high places”. Mariella Dimech was sacked after 10 months in the job, with not one single licence for the non-profit cannabis ‘clubs’ having yet been issued. Dimech complained that she had been left without a functional office, staff, budget or political strategy with which to carry out her job. (See also: McKay appointment a ‘direct insult to the spirit of the law’, says Releaf Malta)

Tilray Inc. shareholders approved the merger with Aphria Inc., creating a cannabis powerhouse that’s both the largest medical marijuana company in Europe and a major player in Canada’s recreational market. The company’s ambitions don’t end there, though. Irwin Simon, the former head of Aphria who is now chairman and chief executive officer of the combined company, has ambitions to transform it from an edgy Canadian marijuana company into a global consumer products giant, potentially selling cannabis in everything from drinks to skin creams to snack bars. The company will have a market value in excess of US$8 billion, making it a giant in the fast-growing cannabis industry.

Tilray and Aphria, two of the biggest marijuana companies in Canada, announced plans to merge and create the world’s largest cannabis outfit. With existing medical and recreational cannabis businesses in Canada and Europe, the new conglomerate is positioning itself to eventually enter the biggest weed market in the world: the U.S. “The next big prize is the United States,” said Tilray CEO Brendan Kennedy. Cannabis is still illegal under U.S. federal law, so the company won’t be able to export into the country unless laws change under President-elect Biden. And as of now, the new company, to operate under the Tilray brand, does not have any US-based cannabis cultivation or retail licenses. (See also: Aphria, Tilray merging to create world's biggest cannabis company)

The US House of Representatives passed a bill to expand cannabis industry access to banking. While a version of that bill stalled in the last Senate, Democrats now have a majority. Major companies are taking notice. Cannabis Wire was the first news organization to report that Marlboro maker Altria had started to get into cannabis lobbying at the state level, through its registration on cannabis sales in Virginia, and that the company planned to lobby at the federal level. Last month, Altria joined Molson Coors and other mainstream companies, like Brink’s, to launch the national Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation. Then, this month, the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and the Reason Foundation launched another national group called the Cannabis Freedom Alliance.

L’année 2023 sera peut-être celle de sa première récolte légale de cannabis. Après des années dans la semi-clandestinité, Aziz a décidé de se ranger « du côté de la loi ». Ce cultivateur du Rif, région montagneuse du nord du Maroc qui abrite l’une des plus grandes productions de la planète, entend tourner le dos aux narcotrafiquants pour vendre son « kif » aux industriels lancés dans la fabrication de produits issus du cannabis. « Deux Américains sont venus dans le village il y a quelques jours,raconte-t-il. Ils veulent construire une usine dans la région et auront besoin de grandes quantités. Ils sont intéressés par nos plantes. Nous n’avons pas encore parlé du prix. »(Lire aussi:Maroc : Les Douanes rappellent les conditions d’acheminement licite du cannabis)

British tobacco company Imperial Brands is getting into the cannabis business with a $123 million investment in Auxly Cannabis, the Canadian company run by former Tweed founder Chuck Rifici. The British firm — which has no ties to Imperial Tobacco Canada — will take a 19.9 per cent ownership in Auxly through a convertible debenture, at a conversion price of $0.81 per share, which is a 11 per cent premium to Auxly’s closing share price as of July 24, 2019. Auxly’s stock soared 20 per cent in early trading today to $0.88 a share. Imperial will also get one out of five board seats at the cannabis company, which will give it some oversight of corporate governance at the company. Auxly, for its part, will obtain the rights to Imperial’s vaping technology.

British American Tobacco said it will buy a nearly 20% stake in Canada-based cannabis producer Organigram for about 126 million pounds ($175.8 million) as it seeks to expand beyond its main tobacco business. Big tobacco and liquor companies in North America have already made large investments in the nascent industry, with cannabis seen as a less harmful alternative to cigarettes. With top Democratic lawmakers in the United States also promising to decriminalise marijuana use, analysts and experts predict record investment in the industry this year. The deal will give BAT access to R&D technologies, product innovation and cannabis expertise, it said in a statement, with an initial focus on natural remedy cannabidiol (CBD).

Earlier this month, an unremarkable sentence appeared in a quarterly report published by Alliance One International, a tobacco company headquartered in North Carolina. “In January, we successfully acquired majority stakes in two new joint ventures,” it reads. Further into the document, it is announced that an Alliance One subsidiary called Canadian Cultivated Products had secured a 75-percent equity position in Canada’s Island Garden Inc. and an 80-percent stake in Goldleaf Pharm Inc. Island Garden and Goldleaf Pharm are medicinal-cannabis companies. (See also: Big US tobacco company buys stakes in Canadian cannabis growers, American hemp firm)

Big 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.

A publicly traded U.S. tobacco company has bought controlling stakes in two Canadian marijuana producers and invested in a North Carolina hemp grower, making what is believed to be the first foray by a significant tobacco business into the cannabis industry. Alliance One International, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol AOI, said it acquired a 75% equity position in Canada’s Island Garden and an 80% stake in Goldleaf Pharm. Terms of the transactions were not disclosed. The moves were first reported by New Cannabis Ventures.

California's legal pot market opens for business on Jan. 1. The day will be a milestone, but what exactly will happen then and, especially, in the weeks and months to come is unclear. Lori Ajax, the state's top pot regulator, has been at the center of the effort to establish rules for a legal pot economy valued at $7 billion. Businesses are required to have a local permit and a state license to open their doors for recreational sales, and that process has moved slowly. State law has specific guidelines for where not to light up, and they include being within 1,000 feet of a school or a daycare center when kids are around, or smoking while driving. (See also: Lawmakers, pot growers say California's marijuana cultivation rules favor big corporate farms)

The fight to legalize marijuana has never been easy, as evidenced by the recent collapse of months-long efforts in New Jersey and New York. A key issue in both is how to ensure that legalized cannabis doesn’t just create another privatized, corporate monopoly, but instead repairs the harm that has been done by the war on drugs. Legalizing cannabis, repairing the economy. Our guests say, reparations and restorative justice for workers in the budding cannabis industry need to be a part of the conversation. Featuring: Drug Policy Alliance‘s NY State Director Kassandra Frederique, Greenworker Cooperatives‘ Communications Director Raybblin Vargas, and Cannaclusive‘s Founder and CEO Mary Pryor.