Why Curaleaf Stock Flopped on Friday

Key Points

• Cannabis reform opponents had their day at the highest levels of government.

• A group of nine congresspeople sent a letter to President Trump urging him not to reschedule marijuana.

• 10 stocks we like better than Curaleaf ›

In the endless one step forward/two steps back dynamic that is American marijuana legalization, several influential legislators opted to move in reverse Friday. This negatively affected sentiment on cannabis stocks, which included multi-state operator Curaleaf (OTC: CURLF). Shares of the company lost more than 2% of their value that day. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) did better, with only a 0.6% slide.

Pot prohibition

President Donald Trump is currently considering a measure to "reschedule" marijuana according to the Drug Enforcement Agency's (DEA) current set of classifications. Such a move would eliminate it from the list of most harmful drugs, de facto legalizing it on the federal level.

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While this enjoys broad popular support, more than a few of this nation's lawmakers are opposed to the change. On Friday, industry website Marijuana Moment said that a group of nine members of Congress banded together to send a formal letter to Trump requesting that he not reschedule pot.

These officials, led by Congressman Pete Sessions, Republican of Texas, are coordinating their effort with an anti-legalization group called the Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), according to Marijuana Moment.

In the missive, Sessions and his colleagues wrote, "Rescheduling marijuana would send a message to kids that marijuana is not harmful and allow Big Marijuana and foreign drug cartels to get billions per year in federal tax breaks."

Raising the specter of addiction

In a subsequent post on X, formerly Twitter, Sessions published a post saying, "We must protect our children from predatory marijuana businesses that want to make them addicted consumers for life."

The marijuana industry's future is legalization; if this is not done in a comprehensive way, the business will remain a crazy quilt dominated by state law, challenged by the lack of access to financial services, among other difficulties. Such setbacks as Sessions' effort threaten to move Curaleaf and its peers further out from the goalpost.

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Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.