MOUNTAINS OF MARIJUANA MOOLAH

Clayton Taylor recently received an urgent call: A marijuana distributor needed him to pick up $400,000 and move it across California.

Taylor isn't a drug mule—he runs a company that provides security services to legal cannabis companies. A client's bank account had been frozen, and the next day was payday. Could Taylor transport cash the company had stowed away so it could pay its roughly 100 staffers?

He and two other armed guards retrieved the money, which the company had in $20 and $100 bills in a duffel bag. They spent the night at a hotel, the bag never leaving their sight, and dropped off the cash the next day.

Though marijuana is now legal in some form in most U.S. states, many banks won't do business with cannabis companies because the drug remains illegal at the federal level. Major credit-card networks such as Visa and Mastercard say they don't process marijuana-related transactions for the same reason.

Some smaller banks have started to offer services to such companies, but customers say they can be unreliable. That leaves cannabis companies spending inordinate amounts of time and money moving around cash.

For companies that are generating that much money, this is a caveman approach to finance, Taylor said. In the case of his client, the bank later closed its account, a common occurrence when financial institutions discover ties to the marijuana industry.

Several times over the years, lawmakers in the House have passed a bipartisan bill that would make it easier to bank cannabis clients. The Senate has never taken its version up for a vote but is expected to this year, making its advocates more optimistic than ever.

To read the complete article, see:
The Big Problem for Marijuana Companies? What to Do With All That Cash (https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/the-big-problem-for-marijuana-companies-what-to-do-with-all-that-cash-09d81fc3)

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
CASHLESS NATIONAL PARKS DEBATE (https://www.coinbooks.org/v27/esylum_v27n13a27.html)

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