Former Mexican president Vicente Fox and a bevy of investors will announce a “major investment on cannabis industry” in Washington State at a press conference this afternoon, held on the 40th floor of the Columbia Tower. Some say they plan to announce the “Starbucks of pot.” The details are scant, but the presence of Fox and several successful medical-marijuana entrepreneurs suggest they’re rolling out substantive plans to define how the legal pot market will shape up.
Obviously, the federal government hangs ominously—will the Department of Justice file an injunction or let this experiment proceed? In addition, the group notes that federal banking regulations have “created an environment in which investment capital has been restricted so that legal, real estate, and other key infrastructure that is needed to ensure a positive outcome for the legalization initiative are being blocked.” (In that vein, in this week’s paper, Ben Livingston reports on obstacles to out-of-state investment in Washington’s pot industry.) The group at the Columbia Tower today vows to announce plans to somehow work within—or around—those restrictions.
Those caveats aside, the Obama Administration hasn’t filed an injunction—six months after voters approved legalization in Washington and Colorado—and if investors have designs on the pot market, now is the time to grab up market share.