Watch out for these new pot laws in 2019… Why Trump will legalize pot outright… Would you have locked up Winston Churchill?… In the mailbag: “I can actually remember a ‘pot free’ America”…


A debate is raging…

As regular readers know, a debate has been raging in the Daily Cut mailbag over the ethical implications of legalizing pot.

And some of your fellow readers are none too impressed.

Take this response from reader Royanne B.:

I am absolutely opposed to recreational pot. States are out to make money even at the risk of their citizens. While I admit I would use medical pot for pain if I had terminal cancer, no one can convince me that the use of recreational pot doesn’t lead to very poor personal decision making and to more advanced drugs.

I might agree if those who use the drug were all highly responsible citizens – but guess what, they aren’t the ones using pot. Yes, I could make money on pot stocks. But it’s against everything I stand for. And I have no interest in going against my values for any return on investment.

Or this from reader William A.:

As a retired physician, I believe medicinal weed products should be legalized across the country where scientific evidence supports use. Prudently, this should be in conjunction with physician input, but not necessarily require a prescription.

However, recreational pot is an entirely different story. This includes, among other things, our propensity to way overindulge. The consequences of this are not good.

Don’t worry if you’re not up to speed with what’s prompted all the back and forth… Here’s what you need to know to catch up.

A wave of cannabis legalization is sweeping over North America…

And it’s been one of the most profitable big-picture investing ideas here at Legacy Research.

Doug Casey’s globetrotting protege Nick Giambruno first put legal pot stocks on Crisis Investing readers’ radar in June 2017.

Since then, the average gain of the 11 stocks in his “End of Marijuana Prohibition” model portfolio is 57%. And the top performer, Canadian pot grower Canopy Growth Corporation (CGC), is up 381%.

Nick says those gains are only getting started…

I (Chris) caught up with him by phone last week at his home in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here’s what he told me about what’s coming down the pike for legal pot stock investors in 2019…

To date, 10 states and Washington, D.C. have approved recreational cannabis. Thirty-three states have legalized medical use.

And with pot legal north and south of the U.S. border, that will put even more pressure on Washington to change its ways. President Trump and the folks up on Capitol Hill will see thousands of jobs… and hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenues… slip through their fingers and go to Canada and Mexico. They’re not going to like it.

That’s why I predict medical marijuana will be legal on the federal level next year. Shortly after, we’ll see recreational pot legalized in some form or another on the federal level, too.

That’s a bold claim. But consider there are 328 million Americans. And more than 221 million of them now live in states where pot is already legal in some form.

So, at this point, it makes zero sense for the feds to enforce federal pot prohibition.

That’s why, as Nick told the folks who made the trip to be with us at our first annual Legacy Investment Summit in Bermuda in October, it won’t be long before Trump makes pot fully legal at the federal level.

That’s exciting news for legal pot stock investors…

As the market for legal cannabis grows, so will the profits of the best-placed pot growers, fertilizer and growing equipment makers, and pot accessory companies.

Here’s Legacy Research cofounder Doug Casey, who’s been tracking the rise of legal pot alongside Nick at Crisis Investing

Pot has been proven to have huge medical applications. I think there’s going to be a big recreational market too, at least the size of that for alcohol. And industrial applications for hemp, as a substitute for cotton in fabrics and wood pulp in paper, are gigantic.

As far as Doug is concerned, ALL drugs should be legal…

Although Doug personally abstains from drugs… he believes they should be 100% legal across the board. Here’s how he put it back in June…

Your primary possession is your own body. If you don’t own it, and don’t have a right to do whatever you want with it, then you in fact have no rights at all.

That’s the main reason why the drugs war is criminal, and morally insane. The economic, medical, practical, and many other reasons to repeal prohibition are important, but strictly secondary.

Aren’t drugs bad for you, though?

A lot of people say so. And we respect their views.

But according to Doug, recreational drugs are made out to be a lot worse than they really are… especially when viewed against other day-to-day activities. Doug…

Hysteria and propaganda aside, most recreational drugs pose less of a health problem than alcohol, nicotine, sugar, or a simple lack of exercise.

Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes… of whom I’m a great fan… was an aficionado of cocaine products. So was Sigmund Freud. Churchill is supposed to have drank a quart of whiskey daily. Dr. William Halsted, father of modern surgery and cofounder of Johns Hopkins University, was a regular user throughout his long and illustrious career, which included inventing local anesthesia after injecting cocaine into his skin.

Thomas Edison, Charles Dickens, Philip K. Dick, Richard Feynman, Francis Crick, John Lilly, Kary Mullis, Carl Sagan… the list of famous and successful people who used various substances to enhance or alter their consciousness is very, very long. Just the ones we know of. But in today’s world, they could all be doing serious time in a federal pen.

That’s not to say you must invest in cannabis stocks…

And it’s not so say you must think pot is okay.

In fact, we hope our readers do disagree with us some of the time. If the ideas we share with you are worthwhile, they’re bound to ruffle some feathers.

So we’re happy to get pushback in the mailbag from our readers. In fact, we welcome it.

If you haven’t already contributed to that debate, don’t be shy. Let us know your thoughts – however controversial. And if you’ve already weighed in on the subject of legal pot, what do you make of Doug’s take? Should all drugs be legal as he says?

Write us at [email protected]. We read every email you send.

And don’t forget to catch up on Doug’s special broadcast…

If you want to hear more from Doug on pot legalization, make sure and check out his recent broadcast with newsletter legends Bill Bonner and Mark Ford.

Doug opens up about everything from what you should look out for when speculating on pot stocks… to the “everything bubble”… to the “cheapest” sector you can buy today.

We’re taking it offline at midnight tomorrow, so watch the replay here before it’s gone.

Finally, on to today’s mailbag…

As the pot legalization debate rages on, your fellow readers tackle our recent questions: Should the government take an active role in regulating the pot industry? Or should we be allowed to put whatever we want into our bodies?

Of course we should be allowed to put whatever we choose to put in our bodies – and we should be liable to compensate others if our resulting actions break the law. It ought to be so simple.

– Martin F.

Pot should not only be legalized, but also it should be studied for additional medical uses. We don’t hear stories about spousal or child abuses while an adult has a “buzz,” but you hear about these types of events when an adult is drunk on alcohol. Stresses of life in today’s culture create a need for a natural way of calming an adult. Pot has the calming effect needed by many people.

– Marty R.

I support medical use, but not recreational use… probably because I am 74 years old, and I can actually remember a “pot free” America (at least in upstate New York, where I grew up). There is now a legal medical marijuana “store” one mile from my home, and I understand people (especially elderly) are benefiting from it.

– Bob J.

My feeling is that drugs like marijuana, opiates, stimulants such as cocaine, and hallucinogenic, etc. should be legalized and regulated. Once it is proven that drug legalization will bring enormous profit to governments (and it already has) then the biggest influence on keeping such drugs illegal will be shown to be Big Pharma.

– Dan F.

What’s your take on the pot debate? Remember to send your thoughts to [email protected].

Regards,

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Chris Lowe
December 4, 2018
Dublin, Ireland

P.S. Before we go, a final reminder not to miss our special broadcast with Doug, Bill, and Mark. More than 20,000 of your fellow Legacy Research subscribers signed up to hear the insights from these self-made millionaires. It’s going offline at midnight tomorrow, so make sure to watch it here before it’s gone.