Courtesy of CannTrustMarijuana being trimmed at CannTrust’s cultivation facility in Ontario, Canada.
The world’s largest asset managers are sitting on the sidelines of the US marijuana industry.
Marijuana is federally illegal in the US. That means that custodian banks are generally reticent to clear stocks of marijuana companies that have US operations.
That could change with the passage of the States Act, which securities lawyers say would give enough clarity around how the federal government will treat the nascent sector for banks and asset managers to do business.
BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, says it wants to invest in US marijuana stocks – but not quite yet.
After a number of states legalised either recreational or medical marijuana in the midterms, some cannabis investors and CEOs say they expect Congress to soon pass the States Act, a piece of bipartisan legislation that would protect cannabis businesses from federal interference.