Marijuana Stocks Rise Amid Optimism About Biden’s Pot Stance

© TheStreet Cannabis Sector Rises High As Biden Presidency Approaches

Marijuana stocks rose Tuesday after President Trump said his administration would cooperate in the transition to Joe Biden’s presidency.

Pot-stock buyers view Biden as more lenient in his marijuana policy than Trump was. “We should decriminalize marijuana,” Biden said in an ABC Town Hall last month, Marijuana Moments reported.

“Wipe out the record so you can actually say, in honesty, ‘have you ever been arrested for anything?’ You can say ‘no’ because we’re going to pass a law saying there is no background you have to reveal relative to the use of marijuana.”

TheStreet monitors the performance in the cannabis stocks sector each week with the Cannabis Stocks Watchlist. Canopy Growth and Tilray fell in trading last week but are rising this week.

The biggest marijuana ETF, Etfmg Alternative Harvest ETF , recently traded at $14.36, up 5.9%. It has jumped 33% since Oct. 30.

Among individual stocks, Aurora Cannabis traded at $9, up 26%; Aphria was at $6.85, up 7.6%; GW Pharmaceuticals moved to $127.98, up 2%; and Canopy Growth traded at $26.87, up 8.7%.

To be sure, it’s not a slam dunk for marijuana liberalization under Biden. “The political dynamics that will define marijuana policy in 2021 go beyond the presidency,” according to Marijuana Moments.

“Despite the stated pro-reform positions of both Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, who has her own questionable record on cannabis criminalization but became the sponsor of a comprehensive legalization bill in 2019, the fate of reform still rests largely on Congress.”

Democrats need to win the two runoff races in Georgia Jan. 5 to gain control of the Senate. If they don’t do so, Congress seems unlikely to ease marijuana restrictions much, if at all.

This article was originally published by TheStreet.