Here’s how legal weed will play out in America – Cannabis Business Executive

Tuesday is 4/20 and naturally one’s mind—or at least my mind—turns to weed.

The big news here is that the tide has turned for marijuana acceptance in this country. And it’s quite likely national marijuana laws will be reformed sometime this year. Note I did not say weed would be fully legalized, I said “laws will be reformed,” an important distinction, but still huge as I’ll explain.

Consider where things stand. Already this year New Mexico, New Jersey, New York and Virginia have legalized weed, which if you add them to the existing legal states, means some 43% of the U.S. population now lives in states where recreational marijuana is legal, as noted by Vox in a recent story headlined “Marijuana legalization has won.” On tap this year are possibly Connecticut, Delaware, Minnesota and Rhode Island, while others like Wisconsin and Maryland are considering it as well. The record years for states legalizing weed were 2016 and last year at four. It’s conceivable that could be doubled this year.

In 2000, only one-third of Americans were in favor of legalization and as recently as a decade ago not a single state allowed for recreational marijuana use. Now two-thirds of Americans support legalization, according to Gallup, an all-time high and 18 states are fully legalized, with weed-friendly bills even passing in red states. [Read More @ Yahoo]