Politics of pot: how the US cannabis industry plans to spend big in the 2016 election

[Geee]

UK Telegraph:

After handing over their campaign donation cheques, the smartly dressed business people took their seats at a large horseshoe table inside the Colorado convention centre.

The room was drab and grey and the gathering looked no different from any of the other daily fundraising events that are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2016 presidential campaign.

But the business executives being courted by Rand Paul, a libertarian-leaning Republican senator, were not lawyers or bankers or oil men. They were the leaders of America's rapidly growing cannabis industry, men and women becoming rich selling a product that is technically just as illegal as heroin or LSD.

"It was a historic moment," said Tripp Keber, head of Dixie Brands, a company that sells cannabis-infused fizzy drinks and other marijuana products. "This is the first time a presidential candidate has openly dealt with an industry still considered illegal at the federal level."

As marijuana becomes big business in America, its political clout is also growing. Politicians are no longer embarrassed to be seen in public with so-called “pot barons” and the cannabis industry is gearing up to be a significant player in next year’s presidential election.