The spirit of John D. Rockefeller is haunting the world of weed.

At an event last Saturday in Boston devoted to marijuana legal reform, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) warned that the marijuana industry risked getting monopolized by Big Retail, Big Pharma, and Big Tobacco.

Warren and Markey called for laws and regulations that empower entrepreneurs and community activists, to preserve the industry’s dynamism. They noted that among the key beneficiaries of anti-monopoly guardrails would be individual investors.

The event, called Federal Cannabis Policy Crash Course, was attended by hundreds of politicians, policymakers, marijuana advocates, investors, and small business owners. The producer was the non-profit think tank, the Parabola Center. Another celebrity speaker was Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s (see tweet).

“Already, aspiring weed billionaires and powerful corporations like Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) and Altria (NYSE: MO), aka Philip Morris, are hounding Congress to pass bills that would let them be the first to profit from federal legalization, leaving behind small business owners and the many communities that were torn apart by decades of over-policing,” noted Parabola in an official statement to kick off the event.

In a prerecorded video played to attendees, Sen. Warren said: “We know that legalization alone is not enough. We need to ensure that the communities most harmed by the war on drugs are at the front of the line for reaping the benefits of legalization and we need to legalize in a way that avoids Big Tobacco and alcohol corporations or retail giants from dominating the cannabis market.”

Warren added:

“Because if it is left to its own devices, the industry is gonna head in that direction. We’re already seeing some of those companies like Amazon lobbying for cannabis legalization. [I’m] deeply skeptical that Amazon’s lobbying is anything more than a self-interested move to monopolize yet another market, potentially blocking Black and Latino entrepreneurs from an emerging industry.”

Markey also addressed attendees in a prerecorded video, saying that “we know all too well that the war on drugs was a failure.” He added that the same communities that have been disproportionately hounded by law enforcement under prohibition “stood up and fought for a different future.”

Markey noted that President Joe Biden’s mass marijuana pardon last year emphasizes the goal of social equity in the cannabis industry.

Keeping a check on market concentration…

Many marijuana advocates are emerging as opponents of certain federal and state legalization initiatives. Their fear is that legal language skewed in favor of corporate giants could spawn monopolies that stifle competition.

Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level. Several bills to lift the federal ban are stuck in a bitterly divided Congress.

WATCH THIS VIDEO: Cannabis Legal Reform Rolls On

You’d think that pro-marijuana forces would want all federal and state bans lifted, but that’s not necessarily so. It seems counterintuitive, but lobbyists for many smaller cannabis companies are working against certain forms of federal and state legalization. They fear that the wrong kind of legalization would spawn huge companies that gobbled up market share and pushed smaller, innovative pot entrepreneurs out of business.

These reformers seek to prevent the emergence of a “Gilded Age” for marijuana, reminiscent of the late 19th century in America when monopolistic robber barons dominated bellwether industries, especially oil, steel and railroads.

In addition to Big Tobacco and e-commerce, Big Pharma is aggressively invading the cannabis biotech sector, seeking to get a lock of proprietary research and products.

One idea gaining ground in Congress and state legislatures is the prohibition of vertical integration, i.e. preventing one business from controlling all stages of production of the supply chain, from seed to sale. The debate is further confirmation that the marijuana industry is evolving beyond its nascent stage and truly entering the realm of mainstream capitalism.

Publisher’s Note: John Persinos is the chief investment strategist of Marijuana Profit Alert, which regularly provides its subscribers with specific, actionable investment advice.

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