gizmodo

Colorado, Washington, and Nevada all did great jobs with legalization because they created sufficient barriers to entry to enable the programs to survive the Feds, and in those states you can easily spot criminals. They’re not as business friendly as California, let’s say, but you know what you’re getting.

California and Oregon stand to improve a lot because their regulations are pretty soft with little to no barriers to entry, so there’s a lot of bad behavior. It’s also no secret that both states export a HUGE amount of marijuana out of state, so when licensing rolls around old habits die hard and there’s a saturation of product that can inevitably bankrupt certain actors in the chain of distribution because they cannot complete with plummeting prices.

Check my twitter handle @CannaBizLawyer. Close enough.

My opinion is that cannabis prohibition will go the same way of alcohol prohibition, and it’s going to be a slow go towards federal reform. The states are leading the way and they’re engaging in marijuana reform through people’s initiatives (on the whole). Congress has shown it has no appetite to take any major steps on legalization or even decriminalization. The states though are creating really comprehensive regulatory codes, licensing structures, and public and health policy standards. I think the federal government is going to rely on that state-by-state marijuana “quilt” in the end just like it did with alcohol.

I do. Some of them won’t even say the word marijuana and they never ask me about what I do. They ask me constantly if I couldn’t take my “skills” and work for a different set of clients. I even had one family member beg me to go in house with a pharmaceutical company they knew because they thought they couldn’t face their friends at lunch club (very dramatic). When I see them at family events, I just make small talk and drink at least three glasses of wine.

In 2014, the financial crimes enforcement network released a memo telling banks and financial institutions how to provide bank accounts to industry licensees. There are about 380 banks participating under those guidelines as of last year. I tell my clients to find these banks if possible and to bank with them.

Those guidelines are very hardcore though in vetting customers to ensure that banks are only working with state-law-abiding operators, so it can be tough on the customer to comply with all of the bank demands. In the alternative, you can’t lie to banks, and you shouldn’t be commingling personal funds with your weed money. As a result, the client often takes their account from bank to bank until they find one, or they use an off-site storage facility to hold the cash with 24/7 security.