The highlight of the Business of Cannabis event, held at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, a hip neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, was the keynote speaker. Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, has since retired from his position but continues to mentor and serve on the board of Green Thumb Industries. He kicked off the afternoon panels with a fiery address that had the audience cheering him on.

“I’m guessing the vast majority of you have no idea who I am. Simplest way to say it is, I’m your fucking daddy, and you don’t even know.”

The crowd erupted with laughter as Nadelmann launched into a passionate reflection on his three decades leading the fight to end marijuana prohibition. He reminded the room that before there was an industry, there was a movement built on outrage, principle, and justice.

He recounted how, in 1996, he helped lead the campaign that made California the first state to legalize medical marijuana, and later founded the Drug Policy Alliance to fight the broader drug war and reframe addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal one.

“I didn’t do this for the industry,” he said. “I did it because I was pissed off—pissed that people were being arrested, discriminated against, lied to, and locked up for smoking a plant.”

He explained that the legalization movement was not driven by corporate interests but by philanthropists and activists from across the political spectrum who believed Prohibition was unjust. “From 1996 to 2016,” he said, “the role of industry in funding reform was almost zero.”

Nadelmann reflected on how unimaginable today’s market once seemed. In the 1980s, only 23 percent of Americans supported legalization. Dispensaries were not even a concept when he began organizing. “We knew marijuana had legitimate medical value,” he said, “but we had no idea how incredibly diverse this could become.”

Turning to the present, he noted that “half the country is now legal,” citing Virginia’s recent progress and growing optimism in Florida and Pennsylvania. “I know most of you focus on New York and New Jersey,” he added, “but I’m a big-picture guy.”

He warned that unresolved federal issues could reshape the industry overnight, particularly the ongoing debate around intoxicating hemp products. “Do we know what’s going to happen with the Farm Bill and that loophole? Will the whole thing be turned upside down? And if they close the Farm Bill loophole and allow the hemp beverages, will they actually enforce it?”

Nadelmann questioned whether hemp and cannabis markets might inevitably merge, given that THC from hemp and cannabis is virtually indistinguishable. “In blind tests, people cannot tell the difference between cannabis products and the hemp THC stuff,” he said. “From a health perspective, when they’re properly regulated, there is no difference. Doesn’t it seem inevitable that the markets are just going to eventually merge?”

He also raised concerns about price compression, competition, and the potential for market consolidation. “Is New York going to become like Michigan? Are we going to see a race to the bottom in terms of price?” he asked, noting that while the illicit market may eventually decline in a well-regulated system, its persistence continues to complicate state programs.

Reflecting on broader economic trends, Nadelmann wondered whether national legalization would lead to massive consolidation or a revival of small operators. He compared cannabis to other industries that evolved over time. “When I moved back to New York 30 years ago, there were hundreds of small coffee shops until Starbucks came along and wiped them out. Now there are more single-owner coffee shops than there were before. The same thing happened with alcohol after Prohibition—large corporations took over, then decades later, we saw the rise of microbreweries and craft distilleries. So we don’t really know how this plays out.”

When asked if legalization was truly “locked in,” Nadelmann cautioned against complacency. “We don’t have to worry about rollback, right? I don’t know,” he said. “Support for legalization peaked two years ago. A couple of polls show Republican support dropping 10 to 14 points just in the last year and a half. Some organizations are already trying to reverse ballot initiatives in states like Massachusetts. If they succeed, that affects the national picture. What happens in New York or Massachusetts matters everywhere.”

He warned that despite the industry’s success, public perception remains fragile. “We know cannabis is a psychoactive substance. We all know people who use it too much or who shouldn’t be using it. We don’t want kids waking and baking. We got lucky that teenage use stayed constant after legalization, but if those numbers start to rise, never underestimate the ability of this country to do something really stupid when it comes to drugs.”

Drawing on history, he reminded the audience that the United States was the only nation to impose a constitutional amendment banning alcohol. “That’s how stupid we were,” he said. “This country can do stupid stuff over and over again, and it’s therefore incumbent upon people in this industry to be smart about how we proceed.”

Still, he offered reasons for optimism, citing growing evidence that cannabis may substitute for opioids in pain management and that cannabis beverages appear to be replacing alcohol for some consumers, which he called a net public health benefit.

But he urged balance and responsibility. “We know more people are using cannabis daily. For many, that’s fine, but for some, it’s not. You talk to psychiatrists, and they’ll tell you they’re seeing more young people with cannabis use disorder. You can’t ignore that,” he said.

As he closed, Nadelmann widened his focus to the broader “psychedelic renaissance,” calling it one of the most exciting social and scientific movements of the past few decades. He drew parallels between today’s psychedelic reform efforts and the early days of marijuana legalization, with states like Colorado and Oregon already leading through therapeutic programs. He predicted a multi-billion-dollar medicinal psychedelics industry on the horizon. He suggested that pharmaceutical companies—once obstacles to cannabis reform—could now play a positive role in legitimizing plant-based medicines.

“They may, in fact, be playing a helpful role,” he said, “because as they figure out which components of the cannabis plant are truly medicinal, they’ll help to legitimize cannabis as something positive.”

He then challenged the audience to think even bigger: “Are we going to become a society that allows people to use the substances they want to alter their state of consciousness without being punished, and regulate it in a smart way? Or are we going to find ourselves rolling back suddenly?”

Nadelmann likened the cannabis movement to the fight for marriage equality—two social revolutions that seemed impossible a generation ago but are now broadly accepted.

“These things were inconceivable 40 years ago, and they now seem locked in,” he said. “But they’re not totally locked in. We have to pay attention.”

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