Newport Beach, Calif.

Justin Hartfield is high.

"I've been high since I'm 13," the 30-year old marijuana entrepreneur says as he sips an iced tea at the Pelican Hill Resort, a tony spot overlooking the Pacific where he plays golf twice a week. But don't mistake this onetime high-school pot dealer with a libertarian streak for your run-of-the-mill stoner. His aim is to become the Philip Morris of the American marijuana industry.

"Prohibition is about to pop. And the people that were here before, if they're positioned intelligently, will reap a profit. I think we're positioned really well," Mr. Hartfield says.

In the 1920s and early 1930s, risk-takers who invested in alcohol while it was still underground hit the jackpot when it was legalized. Joseph Kennedy secured "medicinal liquor" permits during Prohibition and in the months before the anti-alcohol law was repealed in 1933 he secured the exclusive import rights to popular liquor brands like Dewar's whisky and Gordon's gin.