“We have a few formulas, but we have these little
drops that you can take,” she says. “CBD is such
a big thing, it’s so helpful.” She then explains how
CBD, a non-psychotropic element in cannabis,
can smooth out the psychotropic effects of THC.
Detamore sees banking as the major
challenge to normalization. “Pay everybody in
cash? That’s just not safe,” she says. She’s been
either denied service or expelled from four
different banks. She’ll put it under her name, and
they figured it out. She’ll put under her business
name, and they figured it out. “I’m not quite sure
how, but I’m sure it’s the volume of cash that gets
put in. But they walk you out, and then they put
you on a list and you can’t get a bank account at
those banks anymore either.”
Exasperated, she entered a bank one day
and said, “I have a marijuana business and I need
a bank account.” They pulled her aside and said,
sorry, no dice. Banks would like to take deposits
from cannabis entrepreneurs but can’t because
of the Schedule 1 status, which, according the
Patriot Act, renders it uninsurable by FDIC
standards.
“Even as a trade association, we continue
to lose our banking,” says Drayton of the CCIA.
The CCIA is a nonprofit union, and they don’t
even touch the plant, but they’ve lost their
banking three times. “We’ve done credit unions,
we’ve found banks in Santa Rosa that we have
to drive, to and submit our cash. It’s a real
challenge.”
Saphira Galoob is a DC attorney and lobbyist
who represents cannabis interests through the
Liaison Group. She doesn’t imbibe. But she does
see the cannabis prohibition as unjust. Her
intellectual curiosity was piqued by the Safe Act,
and she started working on it around 2016.
She explains that the Department of
Treasury reports that more than 500 banks
actually filed SARs, Suspicious Activity Reports.
“I’m guessing that a decent number of banks
actually have relationships with cannabis
industry stakeholders or ancillary businesses,
whose financial relationship is somehow attached
to the cannabis industry,” she says. “It’s more
realistic that it’s probably around twenty to
fifty banks who actually have comprehensive
programs, certainly not near enough to cover the
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ten-to-twenty thousand businesses.”
Earlier this year, the House of
Representatives passed HR 1595, a legislation
also called the Safe Banking Act. It creates a
statutory safe harbor for banks and insurance
companies to do business with cannabis industry
stakeholders, but with statutory requirements. It
passed with two thirds of the vote. “It is currently
under consideration with the Senate Banking
Committee,” says Galoob.
Since she started working on cannabis
legislation in 2016, Galoob has seen perceptions
shift dramatically: “When I started lobbying in the
space, there were around 210 to 220 Republicans
who were from jurisdictions where some form
of cannabis was lawful. As we started visiting
those offices, I would estimate that only one of
ten of these Republican offices had ever even
been visited by cannabis advocates. Now, every
member of congress is aware of the conflict
between federal law and the law in 47 states
that now have some form of cannabis regulation
in their state. There are more federal cannabis
advocates on Capitol Hill than ever before.
Each day, more lawmakers are interested in the
industry, more lawmakers are educated with our
issues, and most importantly, more lawmakers
are committee to reform.”
Until then, a smart way for cannabis
businesses to manage their cash is to keep
reinvesting it in their business. That’s been the
plan for Danna Lee, the entrepreneur behind
Green Angels, a luxury cannabis delivery service.
“My solution is as soon as we get the cash, I just
buy more product as fast as possible,” she says.
She also keeps her loot in a vault, and there are
companies that handle this, but at a cost of 20-25
percent.
She’s explaining this over lunch at Original
Cannabis Café, a posh new gastropub that allows
smoking at the table. We’re discussing Lowell’s
line of smaller joints for single use called Quicks.
We’re discussing this when a woman at the table
next to us interrupts: “I’m sorry,” she says, “I
couldn’t help hearing y’all talk about Quicks.
Those are good, but Selfies are good, too.”
Lee leans in, curious to hear more. She
asks her about the dosage of a Selfie. The woman
is unsure, saying she thinks it’s 10mg’s. It’s
possible that Lee’s doing some informal market