For Marijuana Stocks U.S., Watch the News 

When it comes to marijuana stocks in the U.S., of course you need to be watching the markets to stay abreast of what’s happening in terms of stock prices. But something that can have an equal impact on shares is political news.

While this applies in one form or another to most products in the U.S., it is perhaps most pronounced in the marijuana market, and for good reason. After all, in many states, the drug is still totally illegal, and the majority of states still don’t allow pot as a legal recreational substance. And this makes U.S. political news of particular importance.

Consider Canada, which sent stock prices surging for a brief period after it announced that it would be legalizing all forms of marijuana by July 2018. Of course, the finer details still need to be worked out, but the move was still heralded as a great win for marijuana producers and the marijuana stock market in general.

Should the U.S. government come out and do something similar, we should expect to see an even more massive uptick in stock prices, and probably a fair bit of newcomers in the market as well.

This is why this particular rumor about a high-ranking official in the U.S. could portend a big shift in the marijuana stock market.

Is Jeff Sessions on the Way Out? 

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has made no bones about his feelings towards marijuana, once going as far as to claim that “good people don’t smoke marijuana.” (Source: “Trump’s pick for attorney general: ‘Good people don’t smoke marijuana’,” The Washington Post, November 18, 2016.)

Photo Credit: flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/6235840117

And his May 1 letter, which was recently made public, was an appeal to basically allow the U.S. federal government to interfere with state-made regulations regarding the legality of marijuana. Below is an excerpt from said letter:

“I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime. The Department must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug traffickers who threaten American lives.”

(Source: “Sessions Asks Congress To Undo Medical Marijuana Protections,” Scribd, May 1, 2017.)

So Jeff Sessions doesn’t like marijuana—now what?

The thing is that President Donald Trump hasn’t really come out one way or the other regarding marijuana, and it’s probably low down on his list of things to tackle as he has many other promises to fulfill before he gets to marijuana legislation. Which make Sessions the most ardent public marijuana opponent in the administration. So if Sessions leaves, that would be good news for marijuana stock markets.

Which brings us to the latest rumor: Sessions may be on the way out.

Sessions is rumored to potentially eyeing the door as the investigation over Russia intensifies and the situation in the White House becomes more dire.

If that does happen, and marijuana is no longer a focus of the person who replaces Sessions, then expect marijuana stocks to rise.

Of course, this is just a rumor and by no means a guarantee that the new attorney general would be any better, but it exemplifies the types of moves you want to be watching for on the news, because they could end up giving you an edge when you play the marijuana stock market.