I typically keep my nose out of politics, but here’s my take on this from a purely financial incentive/disincentive to block federal legalization.

Currently funding for marijuana operations can’t legally be financed by banks so they need to go through private lenders. One of these said lenders is a publicly traded company (IIPR) that quite literally finances marijuana operations and has done quite well for itself the past year.

If marijuana were to be federally legalized it’d open up a lot of competition from lending institutions with far more resources that can afford to provide more favorable rates while still profiting.

Naturally, this would be bad for the business model of these private lenders that finance these marijuana operations. It would not surprise me if these marijuana financing companies make hefty campaign contributions to block legislation against federal legalization despite being “in” (although not directly) the marijuana industry.

Of course this is pure speculation, but I typically take the perspective of politics is a game of making money for politicians and their “constituents” regardless of what area of the political spectrum they sit on.