Former House Speaker turned cannabis investor John Boehner on Friday announced the launch of an industry-funded lobbying group called The National Cannabis Roundtable.

A Republican from West Chester in suburban Cincinnati, Boehner will chair the roundtable. It will represent legalized marijuana businesses in 23 states and the District of Columbia, including New York-based Acreage Holdings.

Acreage owns legalized marijuana licenses in nearly a dozen states. In Ohio, it operates medical marijuana dispensaries under The Botanist name with company Greenleaf Apothecaries. Acreage's chief operating officer was an investor in Terradiol Ohio, which was awarded a large-scale cultivation license.

Boehner, a staunch opponent of legalized marijuana while in Congress, joined Acreage's advisory board last spring because his "thinking on cannabis has evolved.''

The former lawmaker will also serve as an advisor, not a registered lobbyist, for the roundtable, Boehner said during a phone call with reporters Friday.

Boehner said the roundtable will promote changes to federal law that make it easier to research cannabis and for regulated cannabis businesses to operate. Federally, marijuana is an illegal Schedule 1 controlled substance, alongside heroin and LSD, is not a top priority for the group.

Federal law supersedes state laws legalizing marijuana for medical and recreational use, including the 2016 Ohio law that created the state's Medical Marijuana Control Program.

But Boehner said removing cannabis from Schedule I of the U.S. Controlled Substances Act is not the group's top priority.

"It would clearly be a big goal, but I think there are other steps that need to be taken along the way before we get to that,'' he said.

Federal law makes it difficult for legalized marijuana businesses to access banking and other services available to most companies. And marijuana businesses must pay state and federal taxes, but can't deduct expenses as other businesses do.

Boehner said the roundtable's members represent every aspect of the cannabis supply chain, including growers, processors, retailers, wellness centers, investors, entrepreneurs, and publicly traded companies.

Several bills have been introduced in recent years to remove barriers to banking and capital, expand access to medical marijuana to veterans who receive federal health care, and move cannabis off the federal controlled substances list. But none passed, and Republicans routinely blocked marijuana-friendly amendments to other bills.

That could change with Democrats in control of the House. A committee hearing on banking services for marijuana businesses is scheduled for next week.

Boehner expects this Congress to be different from years' past because more states are considering legalizing medicinal or recreational marijuana use – 33 states and the District of Columbia have already legalized it in some capacity.

“Every day that goes by, members are learning more about this and learning more from their own constituents about how the federal government continues to stand in the way,” Boehner said.

More:Everything you ever wanted to know about medical marijuana in Ohio