Now that marijuana has been legalized for medical use in 20 states—with Washington and Colorado also legalizing it for recreational use—experts see the possibility of a viable marijuana industry developing.
And how would that development transpire?
"The obvious forecast is that you'd see an industry that looks like the beer industry," Jeffrey Miron, director of undergraduate studies at Harvard University's department of economics, told
CNBC.
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Small growers could make expensive, superior quality pot, much like craft brewers. And bigger companies could produce in more mass quantities. "They could co-exist," Miron said.
Growth in the industry is limited now, because federal law continues to outlaw pot. Banks and credit card companies aren't allowed to process marijuana transactions.
But ArcView Group, a San Francisco-based angel investor network, predicts the value of the legal U.S. marijuana market will soar 64 percent this year to $2.34 billion, CNBC reported.
Some investors are ready to jump in.
"Our investors are from the far left and the far right," Brendan Kennedy, CEO of Privateer Holdings, a marijuana-based private equity firm, told CNBC. "There's old money and new money. You put them in a room and they wouldn't agree on anything else but this issue."
"The precursors of true national cannabis companies have emerged in the form of multistate licensors and are leveraging strong branding and scalable business models," a recent ArcView report stated.
In Colorado's budding marijuana sector, small businesses dominate the landscape now, according to
The Denver Post. Many pot stores are owned by families who put their savings together or by a few partners who turned to friends and business contacts for capital.
Experts say big companies may soon grow interested in the business, The Post reported.
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