Cannabis cultivation and processing represents the upstream foundation of one of the fastest-growing legal industries in the Western world. As legalization has expanded across the United States and Canada, publicly traded companies have moved aggressively to build commercial-scale cultivation operations, indoor grows, greenhouse facilities, and extraction laboratories, to supply a retail market increasingly normalized in the public imagination. For the biblically responsible investor, that normalization demands a deliberate and principled response.
The cannabis plant itself is not inherently sinful; hemp has been cultivated throughout human history for fiber, food, rope, and industrial uses. However, the cannabis cultivation and processing industry as it exists today is not primarily an agricultural enterprise serving neutral ends. Its dominant commercial purpose is the production of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound responsible for the intoxicating effects of cannabis, for retail distribution. Companies in this category are the foundational suppliers of that intoxicant. Whatever the downstream packaging, branding, or retail channel, the cannabis that reaches the consumer traces its origins to the cultivation and processing operations this screen targets.
Scripture does not mention cannabis by name, just as it does not mention tobacco. Yet the Bible’s teachings on the body as God’s temple, the imperative of sobriety and clear-mindedness, love for one’s neighbor, and accountability for harms that flow from one’s financial choices provide a clear and coherent basis for why growing and processing an intoxicant for commercial distribution stands in tension with biblical values. This is not a reflexive rejection of an emerging industry. It is a deliberate application of timeless principles to a contemporary commercial activity whose consequences, documented addiction, measurable harm to developing brains, and well-established links to psychosis and mental illness, demand a principled response from investors who take their biblical stewardship seriously.
It should be noted that Inspire does not extend this screen to hemp cultivation or to pharmaceutical-grade cannabinoid medicine. Just as Inspire recognizes nuance in the alcohol category, Inspire acknowledges that cannabis as a plant is not inherently sinful and that certain of its derivatives serve legitimate and compassionate purposes. It is the deliberate commercial cultivation and processing of cannabis for its THC content, for retail or wholesale distribution that places a company in violation of this screen.
As of the 2026 research update, Inspire Insight cites 77 instances of Cannabis (Cultivation/Processing) violators matching this definition.
Americans who reported using marijuana in 2022, the highest recorded prevalence in U.S. history, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (SAMHSA).
Estimated global legal cannabis market value in 2022, with cultivation and processing operations representing the core upstream infrastructure of an industry projected to exceed $102 billion by 2026.**
* Inspire's engagement with public companies is part of its Biblically Responsible Investing (BRI) philosophy and aims to promote biblical values through corporate dialogue. Engagement outcomes are not guaranteed and may not directly impact investment returns. Shareholder advocacy is based on Inspire's internal values and may not reflect those of every investor.
**Inspire Investing, LLC serves as the investment adviser to certain proprietary ETFs used in Inspire portfolios. Inspire receives management fees from these ETFs, creating a potential conflict of interest. Inspire seeks to mitigate this conflict through policies and procedures that ensure recommendations are made in clients’ best interests and consistent with their unique goals and risk profiles. Additional details can be found in Inspire’s Form ADV Part 2A.
Though cannabis is never referenced in Scripture, the Bible offers a comprehensive and internally consistent framework for assessing the moral weight of an industry whose primary commercial product is a substance engineered to alter the human mind. That framework is built on four pillars: the body and mind as the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, the imperative of sobriety and self-control, the call to love one’s neighbor as oneself, and the faithful stewardship of all that God has entrusted to His people.
Paul’s teaching that the believer’s body is not merely their own but is the purchased possession of God, a living sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, establishes the primary biblical principle at stake in cannabis cultivation. THC’s mechanism of action is direct neurological interference: it binds to cannabinoid receptors throughout the brain, disrupting perception, memory, executive function, and emotional regulation. An industry that cultivates and processes a substance specifically for its capacity to impair these faculties is, at its core, an industry that profits from the deliberate disruption of what God created, redeemed, and indwells.
Scripture’s instruction to honor God with the body is not a peripheral concern—it is presented as an act of worship. The commercial cannabis industry profits from a product whose primary mode of consumption is the deliberate alteration of the mind and body that God created, redeemed, and indwells.
The New Testament employs the Greek word nēphō throughout to describe the sobriety Scripture commands - a word that encompasses not merely abstinence from intoxicants but clear-headedness, alertness, and the full possession of one’s cognitive faculties. THC is commercially produced for precisely the opposite: the voluntary induction of an altered state of consciousness. Unlike alcohol, which Scripture acknowledges can be used without sin in moderation (John 2:1–11; Psalm 104:14–15), cannabis as a commercial product has no analogous moderate-use precedent in Christian thought or practice, its psychoactive effect begins at the first meaningful dose and is the product’s entire commercial purpose.
The principle in 1 Corinthians 6:12 (‘I will not be dominated by anything’) is particularly incisive in the context of the cannabis industry. Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD), formally recognized in the DSM-5, affects approximately 9% of all cannabis users (NIDA). That figure rises to 17% among those who begin use in adolescence and to 25–50% among daily users (NIDA). For a substantial portion of cannabis consumers, what is marketed as recreational choice becomes a chemical dependency that redirects the will’s allegiance away from Christ’s lordship and toward a substance.
Biblical ethics are never purely individualistic. The command to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Matthew 22:39) extends to how believers deploy economic power and financial capital. The cannabis industry disproportionately harms young people, whose developing brains are uniquely and measurably vulnerable to THC’s psychoactive and psychosis-inducing effects. A landmark 2019 study in The Lancet Psychiatry (Di Forti et al., 2019) found that daily users of high-potency cannabis were five times more likely to develop a psychotic disorder than non-users; a risk concentrated precisely among the adolescent and young-adult populations the industry most actively recruits through branding, social media, and accessible retail.
A complete biblical treatment of the commercial cannabis industry must acknowledge the medical dimension. Cannabis-derived medications, most notably cannabidiol (CBD), which is non-psychoactive, and in certain formulations low-dose THC, have demonstrated genuine therapeutic efficacy for conditions including drug-resistant epilepsy (Epidiolex, FDA-approved in 2018), chronic pain, and chemotherapy-induced nausea. The compassionate use of any plant-derived compound for genuine medical healing is consistent with Scripture’s affirmation of creation’s goodness and the call to care for the sick and suffering.
Cannabis has one of the longest cultivation histories of any plant in human use, with evidence of its cultivation for fiber, food, and medicine dating back at least 4,000 years in Central Asia. Hemp (cannabis bred for low THC and high fiber content) was among the most economically significant crops of the pre-industrial world, prized for the manufacture of rope, sailcloth, and paper. In colonial America, hemp cultivation was actively encouraged: Virginia mandated hemp cultivation in 1619, and figures including George Washington grew it at their estates. The founding generation knew cannabis intimately as an agricultural commodity, though the deliberate cultivation of high-THC varieties for psychoactive use was largely unknown to them.
The deliberate cultivation of cannabis for its psychoactive properties gained commercial and cultural footing in the early 20th century in the United States, introduced in part through Mexican immigration following the Mexican Revolution and spreading through urban jazz and entertainment communities. The association of cannabis with immigrant and minority populations contributed to a growing prohibition movement. In 1937, Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act, effectively criminalizing cannabis cultivation at the federal level—over the objection of the American Medical Association, which argued the legislation placed undue burdens on legitimate medical applications.
When President Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, cannabis was classified as a Schedule I controlled substance, alongside heroin, as having ‘no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.’ Nixon’s subsequent declaration of the War on Drugs superimposed law enforcement priorities onto a significant underground cultivation economy, creating a tension between state and federal law that has defined the cannabis landscape for more than half a century. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, cannabis cultivation was driven underground, with clandestine growers developing hydroponic and indoor techniques precisely to evade detection, techniques that would later become the technological foundation of the legal industry.
The modern commercial cultivation industry traces its origins to California’s Proposition 215, passed by voters in November 1996, which became the first state-level medical cannabis legalization in U.S. history. The law permitted cultivation and distribution for medical purposes and inaugurated the dispensary model, creating the first legal marketplace for domestically cultivated cannabis. Professional cultivation operators began to emerge as growers applied for agricultural science, controlled-environment technology, and commercial scale to what had previously been an artisanal or illicit enterprise.
The industry’s transformation accelerated dramatically in November 2012, when Colorado voters passed Amendment 64 and Washington voters passed Initiative 502, making them the first jurisdictions in the world to legalize cannabis for adult recreational use. The regulatory frameworks these states established (licensed cultivation facilities, processing operations, and retail dispensaries operating within a state-regulated supply chain) became the template for legalization across the United States and ultimately Canada.
The cultivation and processing technology that emerged to serve this legal market is a remarkable industrial achievement - and a telling one. Modern large-scale cultivation facilities deploy sophisticated climate control, full-spectrum LED lighting arrays, hydroponic and aeroponic growing systems, and computer-monitored nutrient delivery to optimize THC yield and potency. Processing facilities use pharmaceutical-grade CO₂ extraction, ethanol extraction, and fractional distillation to isolate and concentrate THC into oils, distillates, and isolates reaching potencies far beyond anything found in natural cannabis flower. The average THC concentration in flower rose from approximately 4% in 1995 to over 12% by 2014 (ElSohly et al., 2016); modern concentrates routinely reach 80–90% THC (NIDA). This deliberate potency escalation is not incidental to the industry’s business model, but rather is central to it. Higher potency commands premium prices, drives habitual consumption, and accelerates the development of dependency.
Canada’s Cannabis Act, which took effect on October 17, 2018, created the world’s first fully nationalized legal cannabis framework for recreational use, and with it the first wave of publicly traded cannabis cultivation corporations. Companies including Canopy Growth, Aurora Cannabis, Tilray, and Cronos Group raised billions in capital on Canadian stock exchanges and attracted institutional investment from American investors for whom U.S.-listed cannabis companies remained inaccessible due to federal illegality. This transformed the industry from a largely private and regional enterprise into a publicly traded global industry.
In the United States, continued federal prohibition under Schedule I has created distinctive commercial constraints. Cannabis companies cannot access FDIC-insured banking, conduct interstate commerce, or deduct ordinary business expenses under Internal Revenue Code Section 280E - which disallows deductions for companies trafficking in Schedule I controlled substances. Nevertheless, multi-state operators (MSOs) including Curaleaf, Green Thumb Industries, Trulieve, and Cresco Labs have built vertically integrated cultivation, processing, and retail operations spanning dozens of states, collectively representing billions of dollars in enterprise value.
As of 2025, the legal cannabis cultivation industry is navigating a challenging commercial environment. Post-legalization supply gluts in mature markets like California, Colorado, and Oregon have driven wholesale cannabis prices to historic lows, squeezing margins for smaller cultivators. Canadian licensed producers have cycled through years of losses, consolidation, and asset writedowns. Yet demand continues to expand as new state markets open and cultural normalization reduces the social signals that once tempered use—particularly among young people. The industry’s trajectory remains unmistakably toward broader scale, greater investment, and deeper commercial entrenchment.
Inspire’s definition for Cannabis (Cultivation/Processing) captures companies at the supply-chain origin point of the commercial THC industry: those that cultivate cannabis plants or process cannabis into intermediate or finished products for retail or wholesale distribution. This screen encompasses a wide range of operators, traditional greenhouse and outdoor cultivators, large-scale indoor cultivation facilities, and extraction and processing companies that transform raw cannabis into oils, concentrates, distillates, edibles ingredients, and vape formulations. In each case, the company’s core economic activity is the production of THC-bearing material for commercial distribution, and it is that activity the screen targets.
A critical distinction governs Inspire’s approach to hemp and pharmaceutical cannabinoids. Hemp, cannabis containing 0.3% THC or less by dry weight, was federally legalized under the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018 (the Farm Bill). Companies cultivating hemp for fiber, food, or CBD wellness products are not automatically flagged under this screen, as hemp cultivation is neither federally illegal nor oriented toward intoxication. Similarly, companies whose cannabis-derived revenue is primarily generated through FDA-approved pharmaceutical cannabinoid products, such as GW Pharmaceuticals’ Epidiolex, a CBD formulation approved for pediatric epilepsy, occupy a medical rather than recreational commercial space and are evaluated separately. The screen is directed at companies whose cultivation and processing activities supply the commercial THC market.
Research methodology for this category draws on publicly available regulatory databases maintained by state cannabis control authorities, company investor relations materials, and data services including Bloomberg and Sustainalytics. Given the rapid pace of corporate restructuring and product-line development in the cannabis sector, Inspire analysts verify potential violators directly against company websites and SEC or Canadian securities filings to ensure classifications reflect current operations.
Cutout: Cannabis Industry Cutout
The commercial cannabis industry presents a human cost that is at once more diffuse and more insidious than that of tobacco. It lacks tobacco’s grim mortality statistics, cannabis is not linked to lung cancer at tobacco’s scale, nor does it carry the same direct cardiovascular burden. But its human cost is real, growing, and increasingly well-documented: a generation of young people exposed to potency levels and product formats that bear no resemblance to what prior eras experienced; rising rates of Cannabis Use Disorder; a well-established and alarming link between high-potency cannabis and psychotic disorders; and an industry whose commercial logic, like tobacco’s before it, depends on cultivating habitual users as early as possible.
Perhaps the most urgent and underappreciated human cost of the modern cannabis industry is its impact on mental health, particularly among young and heavy users. A growing body of peer-reviewed research has established a dose-dependent relationship between cannabis use and psychotic disorders. A 2019 study in The Lancet Psychiatry (Di Forti et al.), drawing on data from eleven sites across Europe and Brazil, found that daily users of high-potency cannabis were five times more likely to develop a psychotic disorder than non-users. In areas where high-potency cannabis constituted a greater share of the market, the incidence of psychosis was correspondingly higher, a finding that directly implicates the deliberate potency escalation strategy of modern cannabis companies.
Beyond psychosis, cannabis use is associated with measurable increases in anxiety and depression, particularly among adolescent users. Longitudinal studies have found that adolescents who use cannabis regularly are significantly more likely to develop depressive disorders in early adulthood than non-using peers, with the effect most pronounced among heavy users. The American Academy of Pediatrics has repeatedly and explicitly advised against any cannabis use during adolescence, citing risks of impaired neurodevelopmental outcomes, reduced academic achievement, and increased vulnerability to psychopathology (AAP, 2020).
The human brain does not reach full developmental maturity until approximately age 25. THC’s principal mechanism of action, binding to cannabinoid receptors that play a critical regulatory role in neural development, means that cannabis exposure during adolescence does not merely produce transient intoxication but potentially disrupts the developmental trajectory of the brain itself. Research has found that adolescents who use cannabis heavily show measurable differences in brain structure and function compared to non-users, including in regions associated with memory, decision-making, and emotional regulation (NIDA). These are not theoretical risks; they are empirically measured outcomes with consequences that can persist into adulthood.
The commercial cannabis industry has been aware of these risks for years. That awareness has not moderated commercial strategies. THC potency has continued to climb, product formats have diversified to maximize appeal and consumption frequency, and the industry has consistently resisted regulatory measures that would constrain commercial growth. The average THC concentration in cannabis flower increased from approximately 4% in 1995 to over 12% by 2014 (ElSohly et al., 2016); modern concentrates routinely test at 80–90% THC (NIDA) - a potency increase with no parallel in any other legal consumer intoxicant.
Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD), formally recognized in the DSM-5, is characterized by a problematic pattern of cannabis use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress. Approximately 9% of all cannabis users develop CUD, a figure that rises to 17% among those who begin using in adolescence and to 25–50% among daily users (NIDA). Between 2001 and 2013, cannabis use disorder among American adults increased by 74% (JAMA Psychiatry). As the market has expanded since 2013, with recreational legal frameworks added in more than twenty additional states, that trend has continued apace. The industry that supplies increasingly potent products to an increasingly accessible retail network is not a passive participant in this trend. It is its primary driver.
The normalization of cannabis use carries public safety costs that extend beyond individual health outcomes. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has identified marijuana as the second most commonly detected substance, after alcohol, in fatally injured drivers.
Marijuana-involved traffic fatalities in Colorado increased 92% in the five years following recreational legalization (Colorado MED, 2022), and Washington State saw similar patterns. Approximately 12 million Americans reported driving under the influence of marijuana at least once in 2021 (NHTSA). The economic costs of cannabis use, healthcare utilization, lost workplace productivity, and impaired educational outcomes, are less fully quantified than those of alcohol or tobacco, in part because systematic data collection has lagged legalization timelines, but the emerging evidence is consistent with a significant and growing burden on communities.
From a BRI perspective, the human cost of cannabis cannot be neatly separated from the commercial strategies of the industry that profits from it. Every cannabis psychosis, every impaired adolescent brain, every case of Cannabis Use Disorder represents a loss, a diminishment of the life of an image-bearer of God, someone uniquely formed by His hand, purposed for His glory, and loved by Christ to the point of His death and resurrection. Every investor who financially supports that industry through capital allocation shares, in some measure, in the consequences of those choices.
The Bible does not name cannabis, but its teachings speak directly and compellingly to an industry whose commercial purpose is the production and distribution of a substance that impairs the mind, undermines self-control, and carries documented harm to the vulnerable. The following biblical principles together inform Inspire’s approach to this screening category:
For Inspire, screening the cannabis industry is not a political statement about drug policy or a judgment about the legal status of cannabis under state law. It is a principled commitment to deploying capital in ways consistent with the biblical vision of human flourishing: sober-minded, self-controlled, honoring to God, and genuinely concerned for the well-being of one’s neighbors-especially the most vulnerable.
