Two famous ex-politicians are the latest to join a cannabis company to lobby the government for wider medical marijuana access. Both claim it's because weed is a fantastic cure that they didn't appreciate while in office, and nothing to do with the fact that weed is now wildly lucrative, and they're making fat bank.

Today's first example is Tom Daschle, former Democratic Senator from South Dakota, who just announced he's joining pot investment firm Northern Swan Holdings. On CNBC this morning, Daschle acted super-excited that marijuana has medical uses, a fact he must've found out about right before signing a juicy contract, otherwise he would've introduced a bill to legalize it while a powerful Senator. 

Daschle follows former Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner, who was "unalterably opposed" to marijuana while in office, but has softened his heart toward the misunderstood plant — probably while smoking a blunt at sunset, when soft light mingled with a bird's song, not when Acreage Holdings asked for Boehner's routing number. 

photo - John Boehner, who loves pot

[Former Speaker of the House John Boehner, who's always loved weed, as long as "always" means "since weed companies got rich." Cover photo: Tom Daschle, the most weed-loving Democrat who never tried to legalize it. Photos from Wikicommons.]

Daschle is joined at Northern Swan by Joe Crowley, former Democratic congressman from New York, who lost in a primary last year to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Crowley now strives to "provide medical cannabis to patients in need,” Crowley said in a press release. What a sweet guy! 

Most of those patients in need will be in Europe, since Northern Swan's companies grow weed in Colombia for a tenth the cost of some North American weed, and export concentrates to Germany.  Crowley probably really wants Germans to be healed by Colombian weed. But Northern Swan hasn't quite cracked the American market, and so Crowley agreed to help, like a necktied Florence Nightingale. On a surely unrelated note, Northern Swan recently raised almost $100 million in funding. 

"Is there something about congress that leads [politicians] to this [cannabis] space?" Daschle was asked on CNBC. Daschle answered that it was the "enormous promise that the plant provides medically … for youthful epilepsy … and pain management." No doubt the stories of suffering patients moved him — to a bigger house! 

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with getting rich off drugs. And it's wonderful that pols are joining the winning side of the Drug War. We just wish they'd admit that the health and wellbeing they're looking after is their 401k's, and the green they're interested in is printed on paper.