"New Jersey will go adult use," he said.
Horn has been focused on cannabis law for four years, before that specializing in litigation in the securities industry as a lawyer for advisory firms, advisors and counselors in Finra examinations. He was inspired to get into cannabis law after taking a trip four years ago to Colorado, where he was fascinated by what he viewed as the birth of a new industry and a new field of law. "Because cannabis law was, and still is, such a new area, there is no leading treatise to rely on," Horn told the ABA Journal in a recent article. "When I set out to master it, I had to create my own curriculum."
In addition to overseeing the firm's law survey, Horn sits on the editorial board of the Cannabis Law Journal. The cannabis law practice he co-chairs encompasses about 50 attorneys at the firm, including about 15 to 20 who are actively involved in the field on a daily basis, he said.
As might be expected, much of the practice's legal work centers on helping clients -- including marijuana industry businesses and investors -- navigate a national market that is overlayed on top of 50 states that have divergent laws and regulations. What's legal in one state may be entirely illegal in another. For a national marijuana business, Horn said, that means a wrong step in just one jurisdiction could destroy an entire company.
But even with those restrictions, Horn said he continues to see unbridled growth in people investing in the industry.
"It's very robust," he said. "People are looking to put their money in the space, to deploy capital."
Not even Sessions' vow to crack down on marijuana use has slowed down the move toward legalization among states, and has perhaps even accelerated it, Horn said. One of the main reasons for this, he said, is that the marijuana businesses represent too lucrative a revenue source for state governments to ignore. Colorado, the first state to legalize weed, collected $250 million in cannabis industry tax revenues in 2017, Horn noted.
With states looking at the potential for even greater revenues, "it will be hard for the federal government to put the horse back in the barn," Horn said.
Eventually, he predicted, marijuana will take a place alongside alcohol, tobacco, gambling and cigarettes as an accepted vice that adds to states' coffers.
"People realize you can only raise taxes so high," Horn said.