US cannabis stocks rallied on Friday after Vice President Kamala Harris called on the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to come to a decision on cannabis rescheduling ‘as quickly as possible’.
The interjection further solidifies speculation that the Biden administration sees cannabis reform as a key election issue and appears committed to pushing through fundamental reform.
It came as the cannabis reclassification rumor mill entered fever pitch once again, seeing Seabreeze Capital Partners’ Dougie Kass announce on X on the same day that the company ‘learned yesterday that the DEA will shortly approve’ the rescheduling of cannabis.
We have learned yesterday that the US Drug Enforcement Administration will shortly approve a rescheduling of cannabis to Schedule III –and that the biggest legal hurdle, an international treaty (the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961)), to which the US is a signatory –
— Dougie Kass (@DougKass) March 15, 2024
He added that, according to the same sources who informed Seabreeze of the initial rescheduling announcement in August 2023, the largest legal hurdle (the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (1961)), had been ‘resolved favorably’.
Elsewhere, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra testified before a US senate committee a day earlier, defending the decision to recommend rescheduling in the first place, arguing that the HHS was ‘simply reflecting what the science is showing’.
On Friday, March 15, New Cannabis Venture’s American Cannabis Operator Index, which tracks the stock price of the US’ largest cannabis firms, shot up by 12%.
Similarly, popular cannabis ETF AdvisorShares Pure US Cannabis increased by nearly 10% on the news, while Curaleaf rose in double digits, and other major US operators like Green Thumb Industries, Verano Holdings and Trulieve Cannabis jumped by over 5%.
Harris’s statements were made at a White House roundtable, which welcomed a group of people who had received federal pardons under President Joe Biden’s 2022 initiative.
She told the room: “Marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin and more dangerous than fentanyl, which is absurd, not to mention patently unfair.”
