10 Pot Stories That Will Define 2018

3. Marijuana Markets And Market Shares

As detailed by MJ Biz Daily, there are eight new cannabis markets opening up in 2018 based on ballot measures that were passed in 2016, including the behemoth California. The expected time-frame for various states to get their respective pot programs underway runs from medical marijuana in Arkansas being sold in the first quarter (first three months) of the new year, ranging to Florida’s MMJ system getting up by the fourth quarter. Legal weed sold in Massachusetts is expected to generate $82 million in revenue in 2018, per the Lowell Sun.

The very welcome presence of these new legal markets will increase marijuana’s massive financial muscles that will likewise elevate its prospect of being legalized by the federal government: for money talks and bullshit walks in Washington, D.C. 

In a related issue, cannabis investors are longing for a pot-related EFT, which are exchange-traded funds that serve as indexes that can actually be traded on the stock market. 

Canada currently has a medical marijuana EFT, which is up 44 percent since its April debut and has currently amassed $216 million in assets, but the multi-billion dollar U.S. industry continues to be on the outside looking in. But there is hope on the way. As broken down by Dave Dierking on Seeking Alpha, a cannabis-specific EFT is coming to America, not in the form of a new fund, but rather as a rebuild of an existing fund that will be dubbed the Alternative Agroscience ETF, which is expected to debut soon. 

This will be the first U.S. traded index that invests in companies that cultivate, create and distribute cannabis products, as well as pharmaceutical companies manufacturing and marketing MMJ products and even companies producing fertilizer and pesticides used in ganja gardening.