Capitalizing On Cannabis: Many Prices Aren't Right Despite The 'Green Light'

The summer of 2013 breathed life back into publicly-traded cannabis-related stocks, reversing a sharp correction that began in February. First, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the Chief Medical Correspondent for CNN, reversed his strongly negative views regarding medical marijuana in early August. Then, Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice gave what many, including me, see as a “green light” for the states of Colorado and Washington to proceed with their implementations of legalized recreational marijuana. In early September, the Senate held hearings that USA Today, which is as mainstream as a paper can get, called rightly the “first-ever hearings of its kind.” This is an understatement, as it served to acknowledge that we are at a tipping point in history.

These events, in my opinion, are game-changers. On the medical side, despite lots of evidence about potential benefits that go beyond palliative care, there hasn’t been an advocate of Gupta’s stature to help enlist broader support. He documented several cases of patients, including young children, finding relief from debilitating diseases from one of the many components of cannabis, cannabidiol (“CBD”), which lacks the psychoactive side-effects of THC. None of this was new, and it is a shame that the U.S. is so far behind other countries in doing the research necessary to better understand the potential and any risks, but now it’s in the eye of the public.

On the recreational side,

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