For years, marijuana conspiracy theorists drifted pictures of packs of Marlboro brand name joints to show the degree that corporations might dominate the cannabis market once the drug was legislated. With Monday’’ s statement by Reuters that Marlboro and Virginia Slims’ ’ moms and dad business Altria is talking about financial investment chances with Canadian marijuana company Cronos Group, those alarmist strategies have actually ended up being an affordable approximation of the future of pot usage.

““ This is so significant since we simply believe this gets the ball rolling,” ” Michael Gorenstein, CEO and chairperson of Cronos Group, informed CNN . While Cronos has actually copped to the reality that it remains in talks with the tobacco huge’’ s corporation, it offered no indicator that an Altria partnership is a done offer. Its stock ended up increasing 11 percent by Monday’’ s end.

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Altria has actually not yet discussed its interest in Cronos. There is little secret surrounding the factors why it would be looking to broaden into the Canadian marijuana market. The business’’ s shares have actually fallen 20 percent throughout 2018. This is mostly due to a wide-spread drop in cigarette use. In the United States, current research studies recommend that grownups are smoking less cigarettes than ever in the past—– everyday cigarette smokers have actually fallen by 15.5 percent considering that 2016 alone.

Cannabis is not the only hero to which the tobacco market is turning. Recently, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Altria is likewise seeking to get ““ a substantial minority stake” ” in thriving electronic cigarette business Juul. Daily e-cigarette users are on the increase in the United States—– 2.8 percent of the overall population, according to some research studies.

Not all of Altria’’ s peers are persuaded that pot is the method to go. Philip Morris CEO Andre Calantzopoulos mentioned his hesitation to diversify to the truth that his corporation runs in lots of markets where the drug is still forbidden. What would Drug War-propagating Rodrigo Duterte believe of such a relocation? “ “ We understand the positions of the president– and, you understand, we have 70 percent market share in the Philippines,” ” Calantzopoulous informed Bloomberg today. ““ I can just think of if we were called and asked, in a theoretical case, ‘‘ what are you individuals doing?’”’”

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Altria appears all set to field those calls, and has some extremely lucrative factors to do so. Cannabis Business Daily approximates that there is presently a $52.5 billion need for cannabis in the United States. Canada is the world’’ s biggest nationwide market for legal weed, and Cronos just recently constructed a place there that can produce approximately 40,000 kgs of marijuana on a yearly basis. The Canadian business has actually concentrated on reinforcing its technological capabilities to make a long-lasting market leader, and has actually even released a job with Boston’’ s Ginkgo Bioworks to establish synthetic cannabinoids.

Marlboro’’ s moms and dad business is far from the just big corporation that appears to be positioning its bets on the green. Molson Coors, Walmart, Pepsi, and Coca Cola are all home names that have actually openly flirted with the possibility of producing marijuana items. The message is clear: Corporate marijuana is no longer the things of supposition, however rather a quickly trespassing truth.

The post Marlboro Parent Company May be Entering Marijuana Market appeared initially on High Times .

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