As states continue to legalize cannabis use, the marijuana stock industry has begun putting more and more money into shaping federal policies. Throughout the first half of 2017, the marijuana industry spent $450,000 on lobbyists, two times the amount it did in the same period in 2016 according to a recent report from the Center for Responsive Politics. The website that keeps tabs on lobbying expenses.
Though other companies in other sectors spent way more, the rate of growth with cannabis lobbying was the highest of all the industries.
“Whenever you see industry that didn’t used to be regulated becoming regulated, you are going to see a lot of people wanting to influence those regulations,” stated Sarah Bryner, the Center for Responsive Politics’ research director.
A majority of the increase roots from spending by Scotts Miracle-Cro Co., a garden products company based in Ohio, that is betting big on legalized marijuana. Scotts “has emerged as one of the biggest players in the traditional business to publicly establish a foothold in the ancillary wings of the cannabis industry,” according to an industry publication.
Disclosure reports display that Scotts spent $210,000 on lobbying in the first six months of the year, which is roughly $90,000 more than all of lasat year. The Scotts lobbying money went to two Washington firms: the Podesta Group, co-founded by Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta; and BGR Group, whose founding partner is former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour.
A minimum of 29 states and the District of Columbia have some form of legalized marijuana use whether its medicinal or recreational. Most of those laws require doctors’ approvals, though eight states have passed laws allowing some forms of recreational use.
