U.S. Marijuana Legalization in 2021?

It’s come again: the presidential election run-up is now in full swing, with many of the biggest names in the Democratic Party announcing their bids for president.

While we can expect countless news stories surrounding the election from now until November 2020, the most important ones for our purposes have to do with U.S. marijuana legalization in 2021, which could be the single most pivotal event in the history of the industry.

You see, as I predicted last year, many of the big-name Democratic presidential candidates have come out in favor of marijuana reform on a federal level.

Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Kristen Gillibrand, and Elizabeth Warren have all endorsed federal marijuana reform to one degree or another.




This is a big deal. In fact, this is the first time in the history of the country that all the top candidates for a major American political party have endorsed marijuana reform.

While I’m not going to do a deep dive into each individual candidate’s position on marijuana, the important takeaway is that the left is looking to jump-start U.S. marijuana legalization.

Now, it’s not as if the sitting president, Donald Trump, is virulently anti-pot himself. But he is hampered by many within the Republican party who are still staunch opponents of pot.

Not to mention that Trump has so many other things on the go—Chinese trade wars, government shutdown disputes, border wall funding, his re-election campaign—that it’s highly unlikely that he gets around to dealing with pot legislation before November 2020.

Which leads us to the best-case scenario for pot stocks: a Democrat in the White House with plans for federal marijuana reform.

Considering that the Democrats hold the House, it’s very possible that a few Republican senators would join the Democrats in a push for marijuana reform, putting us on a path for U.S. marijuana legalization in 2021.

While there are a lot of variables in this possibility, it is by no means implausible.

And if the ball gets rolling in that direction, then we’re on pace for what will likely be one of the biggest marijuana stock explosions ever.

While marijuana companies are trying to find ways into the U.S. market, like Canopy Growth Corp (NYSE:CGC) and its expansion via cannabidiol, nothing can compare to the potential that a fully legal recreational market holds.

For the sake of comparison, look how high marijuana stocks have soared since Canadian marijuana legalization. And Canada is a far smaller market than the U.S.

Whether we see U.S. marijuana legalization in 2021, we’ve still come a long way in the fight for pot reform, with every election bringing us closer to the highly anticipated day when America ends its pot prohibition.

Analyst Take

There’s many a good reason to be bullish about marijuana stocks long-term, but an impending marijuana bill in the U.S. would, on its own, drive share prices crazy.

While it’s by no means guaranteed to take place in 2021, there’s a better-than-zero chance that we’ll see serious marijuana reform enacted in that year. That means, within two to three years, we could see the largest market in the world open up to recreational pot.

The ones laughing, of course, will be the investors who had the foresight to buy the right shares in advance of the rush.