The pot industry exists and has existed for some time. Currently what is happening is highly fragmented tax-paying American outfits are replacing Mexican cartels as the production source, so that's at least a Good Thing. Even if it was legalized at the Federal level I'm not sure we would see a big-tobacco approach to growing pot.

Keep in mind this article is talking about growth of the state-legal pot industry, not growth of the overall pot industry (legal or otherwise) which I think must be growing, but more like at single digit percentage rates.

The industry was already there, we just have a much nicer set of owners now. Less beheadings.

Marijuana is far less addictive and because users smoke much less marijuana than they do tobacco, the health impacts are far less severe. Not to mention that a new tobacco industry would be preferable to the double whammy of the erosion of civil liberties, government, society, and human lives caused by the war on drugs and the financial windfall to cartels that illegal drugs have represented.

A stopgap measure would be banning public advertisements for the entire industry and taxing tge industry to fund education and rehabilitation.