Marijuana dispensary owners must appreciate the most recent decision by the United States Federal Government. Moreover, so should homeowners, business owners, and frankly anyone who has been earning revenue from the mass exodus to Colorado in the past few years. Ever since recreation marijuana sales have been legalized in Colorado, the state has seen historic numbers of people vacationing and moving into the State of Colorado.
Recently it was announced the DEA is not planning on rescheduling marijuana in 2016. What this means is that according to United States Federal Law, the drug is classified as a schedule 1 drug which means the US Government does not recognize marijuana as having any medical benefit. This classification keeps marijuana in the same bucket as heroin (diacetylmorphine), LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide) , mescaline (peyote), MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine or “ecstasy”), GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyric acid), ecstasy (MDMA or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine), psilocybin, methaqualone (quaalude), khat (cathinone) and bath salts (3,4-methylenedioxypyrovalerone or MDPV). So let’s be clear here, the Federal Government views marijuana, weed, ganga or whatever you want to call it as the same as all of these other drugs listed above.
Colorado Marijuana Dispensary owners should appreciate the DEA!
United States DEA
This is simple. The longer the United States Federal Government does not legalize marijuana nationwide, the longer the business owner will continue to thrive financially in Colorado and other states like Washington where it’s legal to buy recreational marijuana. The longer this continues, the more money the state will make not just from the marijuana dispensary owner but also so many more business owners. Again, as mentioned above, Colorado is seeing record numbers of people moving to the state and vacationing in the state. Is this a coincidence? I don’t think so!
Marijuana dispensary owners still have other issues resulting from the DEA recognizing marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug. A major issue is with the United States banking industry. The marijuana dispensary owner cannot technically get a business bank account, or business loan. In fact, in a recent article, Tim Cullen founder of Colorado Harvest Company said, a bank shut down all his personal accounts, including college savings for his 3-year-old son. Bottom line is that while the marijuana dispensary owners business is thriving and will continue to thrive due to the recent DEA decision, they still face some serious security issues with their money. Perhaps in the Obama administration or the next administration will address these issues. By addressing these issues and providing the banking industry with the comfort of accepting money from the dispensary, the result will be a more legitimate and traceable opportunity to tax correctly and thus the states, local and federal governments will be able to generate more tax revenue generated by the marijuana dispensary owners.