Legalizing Recreational Marijuana in Colorado Reversed a 14-Year Trend of Rising Opioid-Related Deaths

The marijuana industry is, for lack of a better pun, sprouting like a weed. According to cannabis research firm ArcView, the North American legal weed market grew by 34% in 2016 and is expected to expand by a compound annual rate of 26% through 2021. By 2021, we could be talking about a market worth $21.6 billion, which has certainly caught the attention of investors.

Fueling this growth has been a major shift in the way the public views cannabis. Gallup, which has conducted marijuana perception polls for the past 47 years, found in Oct. 2016 that 60% of the U.S. population favors legalizing pot nationally. That's up significantly from the 25% who favored such a measure in 1995, the year before California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis.

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Source: Fool.com