BREAKING: Can Colorado Become the First State to Sell Legal Cannabis Under Federal Law?
Colorado is one of the first states to legalize both medical and recreational marijuana. During the last 4 years, the state saw a steady increase in legal marijuana sales, number of cannabis business licenses, and employment. In the year 2017, legal cannabis sales in Colorado totaled about $1.5 billion dollars.1 Even though cannabis industry takes up a small part of the “total employment in Colorado”, the increase of 17.7% in marijuana employment during the last 4 years is one of the fastest growing in the state. 2 In addition, taxes collected from the cannabis industry equaled to about “2.3 percent of Colorado’s 2017 general fund revenue”.2
Hence, there is no secret that the state of Colorado reaps economic benefits, such as the increase in employment and tax collections, from legal medical and recreational cannabis sales. Even though legalized cannabis clearly provides economic benefits to the state, cannabis vendors are still dealing with regularly changing state-specific regulations, different licensing processes and most importantly the federal government, that till date classifies cannabis as a controlled substance. The lack of federal legalization creates all sorts of financial obstacles for cannabis vendors in Colorado. Cash transactions alone create numerous storage, tracking, and safety issues.
However, there is good chance that cannabis vendors in Colorado might start seeing some positive some changes in the near future. At the beginning of June, Senator Cory Gardner and Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced a bill under which cannabis would be federally legal in states that already legalized marijuana.3 There is still some ways to go before the bill acquires the much-needed support and goes into effect, however, this is great news to Colorado cannabis vendors that are currently dealing with various obstacles due to federal prohibitions.
In the meantime, Colorado cannabis vendors who struggle with the cash transaction volume, tracking, and storage, can get some much-needed relief by using Merchant Club of America Pin-Based Debit and Credit Card Processing Solutions. These solutions are specifically designed for cannabis vendors and offer safe cashless processing and transaction tracking,
Contact us today by filling out the form below and get more information about Financial Solutions for Colorado cannabis vendors.
This blog is created and managed by DS&P.
SOURCE:
“Industry Overview” by Medical Marijuana, Inc. on medicalmarijuana.com. Posted on n.d., accessed on 6/11/2018.
“The Economic Effects of the Marijuana Industry in Colorado” by Alison Felix on kansascityfed.org. Posted on 4/16/18, accessed on 6/11/2018
“Colorado’s legalized marijuana would be federally lawful under bill introduced by Cory Gardner, Elizabeth Warren” by Mark K. Matthews on deverpost.com. Posted on 6/7/2018, accessed on 6/11/2018.
