Could This Enigmatic Statement Lead to Marijuana Legalization in the E.U.?
On July 15, a high-profile meeting about cannabis law in the E.U. between delegations from Germany, Malta, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands yielded an enigmatic yet telling tidbit about the future of legalization. In the joint statement signed on by all of the countries at the meeting except the Netherlands, there are eight little words bound to send a shock through the world of cannabis: "The status quo is not a tenable option." That's a dead ringer for major changes to cannabis policy on the horizon.
When paired with Germany's moves in June to start the process of legalizing marijuana by evaluating the relevant consumer protection standards and holding hearings, it's clear that a green wave of legalization in the E.U. could be building, and rapidly. While there are no votes scheduled that might change the legislative environment overnight, from the perspective of investors, that's good news, as it means there's time to get positioned to profit from legalization if it occurs. Let's explore what else is going on in the E.U.'s marijuana policy at the moment and discuss which companies are the most likely to benefit.
Despite the ministers' admission that the status quo of cannabis legalization isn't suitable for the long term, it's important to understand the context of what they were discussing. Rather than explicitly talking about legalization for adult-use recreational purposes, most of the joint statement was about the more mundane matters of "public health and public security." In other words, the ministers were grappling with the difficulty of enforcing the current set of cannabis laws in the E.U. in a way that's consistent with upholding the public good. Legalization might be one policy approach to address that difficulty in an economically productive way, but it probably wouldn't be the only policy used to control marijuana use and distribution, either.
Source Fool.com
