Page 78 - BusinessWest August 18, 2021

positively about it, and they see the success of the industry, and you’re seeing more willingness to work with cannabis.”
Some bills have been introduced in Washing- ton to, if not legalize cannabis, at least decrimi- nalize it.
“Those bills would make it easier for us, and also de-risk the industry around the margins for a
“In the early days, there weren’t
a lot of professionals willing to
take the career risk to enter the industry, so it was hard to find talent to come in and help grow the business. But, again, you’re starting to see that shift as more states legalize and you see the social proofs play out.”
lot of partners,” Gallagher said. “The trend is defi- nitely there, but in what time frame will that hap- pen? From our perspective, it’s been happening
a lot faster than we ever expected. When we got into this, we thought the legal conversation would take 20 or 30 years to play out.”
Taking No Credit
Sanders is hopeful, too. “At the federal level,
Patrick Gottschlicht (left) and Peter Gallagher say cannabis is a much more challenging business than it seems — but it’s a rewarding one.
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we have big challenges. We can’t even take credit cards. That’s so silly. We can take a debit card and cash, and that’s it. That alone would be a really big help.”
Scott Foster, a partner at Bulkley Richardson and one of the attorneys in that firm’s cannabis practice group, believes sentiment is growing that Congress will act sooner rather than later on some degree of allowing banks into the cannabis space or remove the threat of federal enforce- ment against entities that partner with cannabis operators.
“That will help create some stability. And the biggest thing it’ll do is allow people to use credit
cards at the facilities; it’s largely cash right now. If Congress changes that law, boom — you can use your Visa card, you can use your Mastercard. And the reason that you can’t now is not because Visa and Mastercard have a particular ethical or moral problem with it — they’ve just got a legal problem.”
Some federal bills have bipartisan support, he added, “but Congress has a lot of other things going on.” Still, with almost 40 states and territo- ries having legalized medical cannabis and more than 20 giving the OK to adult-use cannabis, “I think the tide is definitely turning on this; it’s just a matter of how far it goes, and how quickly.”
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