If it had even been suggested as recently as forty years ago that marijuana would not only have been legalised but come close to being deified in some of the soberest of circles around the world in 2021 and would have re-presented itself as a highly lucrative, globally popular commercial product, they may have had to suffer the humiliation of being ‘laughed off the planet’.
Marijuana has turned over a new leaf, so to speak. These days, the image of cannabis has not just been dusted off but burnished to the point where it has delivered industries estimated to be worth upwards of US$20 billion. Legalisation has torn down the walls of rejection in even the most conservative countries and global industry lobbies deify ‘weed’ as a guaranteed ‘bankable’ product in the right hands.
As marijuana’s medical and cosmetic credentials continue to bask in iron-clad scientific confirmation, there appears to be no stopping its inevitable longer-term veneration. Marijuana has traveled light years from the days when it was smoked in dark and secluded places, and amongst the law-breakers in tenement yards. What was once a black market commodity is, these days, floated on stock markets, continually attracting the attention of investors.