Big Marijuana: How corporations and lobbies will shape the legalization landscape

Four states and D.C. have legalized recreational marijuana, and more may do so this fall. But legalization is just the beginning of policy development. After legalization come commercialization and regulation—processes sure to be influenced by corporations and interest groups. How will lobbying and corporatization affect the structure and regulation of the licit marijuana market? And how should policymakers respond?

On June 16, the Center for Effective Public Management at Brookings released two papers examining these issues. Authors and Brookings Senior Fellows John Hudak, Jonathan Rauch, and Philip Wallach were joined by experts from government, private industry, the non-profit sector, and academia to assess the papers’ findings that state-level regulation can help rein in special interests and that big corporations can bring benefits as well as risks.

Read the papers:

• Worry about bad marijuana—not Big Marijuana
• Bootleggers, Baptists, bureaucrats, and bongs: How special interests will shape marijuana legalization

Join the conversation on Twitter at #BigMarijuana and @BrookingsGov