“The industry was hoping to avoid Chris Christie as [attorney general] because of his lack of support,” said David Dinenberg, the president of KIND Financial, a software company for cannabis businesses. “Now, I am pretty sure we did no better and maybe worse.”

There is some hope in the marijuana industry that Sessions will bow to Trump’s previous statements of following states’ leads.

“We would expect appointees who serve at the pleasure of the president to stick to the president’s position on this subject,” the Marijuana Policy Project said in a statement. “It would certainly be controversial if Sen. Sessions completely defied the president who appointed him.”…

“If I were a betting man, I’d be shorting the marijuana industry,” said Kevin Sabet, the President of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, or SAM, an anti-legalization group in an email. “Generally markets don’t like uncertainty, and [Trump’s attorney general] announcement has made a murky issue even more unclear.”