While federal cannabis banking reform nearly passed last month, proposed regulations crafted to relieve cash-starved operators licensed in nearly 40 states are not yet a high enough priority to enough Senators to be baked into law.
Industry experts point to three pathways that could achieve at least incremental progress toward sunsetting antiquated and misguided regulations currently hampering the growth of thousands of U.S.-based operators and their hundreds of thousands of employees.
- Flip republican senators increasingly open to economic liberation for small business owners.
- Advocate to deschedule cannabis from the 1970 Controlled Substances Act.
- Level the playing field with Canadian operators and strive to become publicly traded within U.S. Exchanges.
Christian Ficara, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Cresco Labs, said getting SAFE Banking passed through congress will be predicated on converting the “yellow lights” to “green lights.”
A lot of folks are in the plotting phase right now. You are looking at a new Republican Leadership and you’re looking for who your champions are in the Senate as well.
Jeremy Unruh, Senior Vice President of Public and Regulatory Affairs at Pharmacann, concurred that there is more space today to activate libertarian-minded republican senators.
We have all looked to the more progressive democrats to ‘free the weed’ and support legalization and those sorts of things. Traditionally, if this wasn’t cannabis, I would expect the republicans to be more aligned with these economic and business fixes around the industry.
Watch a summary of the conversation featuring:
- Jeremy Unruh – Senior VP, Public & Regulatory Affairs, PharmaCann
- Christian Ficara – Vice President, Government Affairs, Cresco Labs
- John Daley – President, Daley Strategy
Originally published here on grownin.com
