The socially conscious investor is always looking for ways to benefit more than him/herself when making investments in the market. Many investors have not yet discovered the positive impacts that investing in cannabis can potentially give to the surrounding area. The Global Impact Investing Network or GIIN states that investing is “the intention to generate social and environmental impact alongside financial return.” Now, it is obvious that most are investing in the market for the financial gains, but there is no reason why one can’t help change the world as well.
Cannabis has become an industry with a great amount of social impact. Analysts have stated that the market could potentially also reach as much as $50 billion by 2026, from where it currently stands at around $10 billion today. The market is still however quite new, but this is not an issue considering how quickly it is growing. Many have compared the cannabis market to that of the Dotcom boom, but without all of the risks. Since the market is still very new, there are hopefully still a large amount of gains to be reaped.
From the social impact perspective, cannabis has a large amount of potential to change the world in terms of policy, crime rates and more. Emily Paxhia, founding partner of Poseidon Asset Management, a large investment fund for the world of cannabis, stated that she thinks investing in cannabis can lead to social change. She states that “Investing in cannabis is rewarding not only for the returns we see, but also for the social and environmental benefits. While it might not seem like impact investing at first glance, there are additional positive outcomes to capitalizing the cannabis industry. We have seen communities benefit from job creation, reduced opiate addiction and advances in criminal justice reform.”
The cannabis space has a large amount of factors within it including economic, public health, legality and more. The medicinal benefits of cannabis have been studied widely and documented throughout the past 10-20 years with the new proliferation of the market. With new investments coming into the space, more research can potentially be done into seeing how cannabis can treat or even cure everything from PTSD to anxiety to cancer.
Cannabis also has a large ability to change the criminal justice system. For too long the world of cannabis has been criminally biased towards minorities and those in lower income areas. Now that it is legal in many parts of the U.S. and some countries throughout the world, the arrest rate has gone down substantially. One statistic states that African Americans are as much as 4-10 times as likely to be arrested for using or possessing cannabis. With new legislation, this could likely change for the better, helping to destroy this inequality once and for all. Aside from this, the criminal justice system in the U.S. is full of individuals who have been arrested for cannabis-related crimes. Much of this has simply been fodder for the for-profit prison industry in the U.S., but with new laws, this could hopefully change in the future.
As the U.S. moves toward federal legislation in favor of cannabis from a national standpoint, there are many things that are subject to change for the better. The hopes are high that a combination of good legislation and a paradigm shift in the image of cannabis, can potentially help to continue reshaping this industry and the country. Only time will tell how the industry will continue to evolve in the near future.
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