John Boehner has joined the board of one of the largest US marijuana businesses: Acreage Holdings, which hopes to profit from retailing cannabis products as US states relax restrictions on the product despite on-going federal prohibition.
Before taking on the job of growing, distributing and retailing marijuana, Boehner was Speaker of the House, one of the most powerful people in national politics. During this time, from 2011 to 2015, 420,000 people were arrested in the US for marijuana sales and trafficking. In his own words, Boehner was once “unalterably opposed” to legalizing the product; now, his views have “evolved.”
Who knows why his views evolved? The man who married his daughter in 2013 was once arrested on a misdemeanor marijuana charge. He also now stands to earn money from the enterprise. Regardless, Boehner thinks the “the time has come for serious consideration of a shift in federal marijuana policy.”
Too bad for the more than 15 million people arrested for marijuana offenses since 1980, before the time came.