Their ev doesn’t assume increased spending.

Cannabis lobbying, like the industry itself, has matured in recent years, and some of the biggest firms have set up practices.

The United States Cannabis Council, which represents cannabis companies as well as lobbying and law firms, dramatically scaled back its federal lobbying expenditures in the first quarter of this year, reporting $20,000, down from $220,000 for the same period last year. That decline reflects the council’s restructuring amid the legislative loss and spending will ramp back up, said David Culver, a US Cannabis Council board member.

The council’s main priority was the Safe Banking Act, which would have allowed banks to legally make transactions for marijuana business in states where such commerce is allowed. That is again the council’s top priority, Culver said.

“We believe there’s actually a very real chance that this is the Congress, and it’s going to get done,” Culver said.

The House, when Democrats controlled the chamber, passed the measure, but the Senate did not. This Congress, lobbyists are focusing on prodding the Senate initially, while trying to pave the way with the Republican-controlled House.

Andrew Freedman, who serves as executive director of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation, said he’s in Washington this week for 420 (which, he said, will include a happy hour where no cannabis will be served).

That group paid the lobbying firm Forbes Tate $50,000 in the first quarter of the year, according to a disclosure form. It also spent another $60,000 at two other firms, the Alpine Advisors and the Daschle Group where former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, (D-S.D.) is among the lobbyists working the issue.