CNN – Tobacco giant Altira is investing $1.8 billion in Canadian cannabis company Cronos Group. That will give Altria a 45% stake in the company, with an option for Altria to increase its stake to 55% over the next five years.
Reports of an Altria-Cronos deal first surfaced earlier this week. The decision by Altria to go ahead with an investment in Cronos shows that Altria is serious about investing in marijuana as a new growth area as sales of traditional cigarettes slow.
Altira is the parent company of Marlboro (shout-out Superman). $1.8 BILLION is a lot of investment from Altira and I’m sure they’re going to be looking for a return on that investment sooner rather than later, so the pressure’s on Canada… smoke up. Not to worry, though, marijuana is one of those products that pretty much sells itself, ya know, kind of like tobacco.
As for the technical side of things, I can’t imagine it’d be terribly hard to expand upon your tobacco cigarette empire to a marijuana cigarette empire. Just different stuffing is all.
There are some people who say big tobacco getting involved with the marijuana industry is not good for the marijuana industry. But that’s stupid because of course big tobacco is going to get involved in the marijuana industry. It’s the easiest product expansion of all time.
Keep calm and smoke on stoner friends. Legalization will get here soon enough then you can just grow it in your closet and not have to worry about big tobacco saturating the marijuana market.
Audio Dope 