How marijuana is poised for a North American takeover

The United States is feeling some North American peer pressure to get in on the cannabis boom.

Producers in Canada, where marijuana is legal for medicinal and recreational uses, are already planning for a future where pot is a globally traded commodity, and some are setting themselves up to profit if it is legalized in the U.S.

In Mexico cannabis is legal for medicinal purposes, and the landscape could shift further: The country’s new president, whose party controls a majority in the national legislature, sent a proposal to the Mexican Senate late last year to legalize recreational use.

In Washington, support for liberalizing marijuana laws is growing in Congress, many of the 2020 Democratic contenders for the White House back the push, and President Donald Trump is even said to be willing to sign a measure to give states the power to decide for themselves whether to make weed legal.

But despite the budding momentum, bills to legalize marijuana or at least decriminalize it aren’t expected to pass before the 2020 presidential election. [Read more at Politico]