No description of the American marijuana industry is complete without billions. Many, many billions: Billions and billions of revenue, and billions more in projected growth, once more states allow private enterprise to capture what’s still mostly an illicit economy through widespread legalization.

But for all that money, American cannabis has rarely acted like an industry that was supposed to be bigger than the NFL by now, and actually used some of those awesome resources to shape policy.

In 2020, with legalization appearing on the ballot in four states on Election Day today, this appears to be at last changing.

For many election cycles, billionaire philanthropists and social-justice organizations did all the heavy political lifting, plunking down the necessary millions of dollars required to run and win legalization campaigns.

Meanwhile, cannabis companies and industry organizations have spent millions on lobbyists in Washington, D.C., who haven’t been able to accomplish all that much. And without expanded markets, none of those multi-billion-dollar projections splashed across news headlines and in impatient investors’ pitch decks will come true.

Cannabis companies grasp they need larger markets to make more money—and this is the year that they’re finally willing to pay for it. [Read More @ Forbes]