Marijuana's Catch-22: Is There No Way for Cannabis to Succeed?

By most accounts, the marijuana industry is growing like a weed.Since California became the first state to legalize medical cannabis in 1996, two dozen additional states have also legalized medical pot, and four states -- Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska -- along with Washington, D.C., have legalized the sale of recreational marijuana.

This is pretty exceptional considering that public support for the nationwide legalization of marijuana stood at just 36% in 2005. Today, according to Gallup's most recent poll, 60% of Americans approve of the idea of fully legalizing marijuana.

The industry and state governments appear to be benefiting, as well. A recently released financial report from Cowen & Co. estimated that legal pot sales are currently worth $6 billion, with the investment bank predicting that legal sales could explode to $50 billion by 2026. For you math-phobic people, that's a compounded annual growth rate of nearly 24% over the...

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