What Needs to Change in the Cannabis Industry: Thoughts from CPPNW
Cannabis Patients Pacific Northwest (CPPNW) co-founders, David Benedicktus and Jeremy Robbins, discuss what changes need to be made to the cannabis industry to allow it to thrive.
What would you like to see change in the next 5 years in the cannabis industry?
David Benedicktus: Rescheduling Schedule I. Allowing the banking industry to take over and access the dispensaries. Let growers have access to the banking industry and federal legalization. And the big thing for me is the federal legalization because on the social justice side of things some opportunistic law enforcement agencies are using this as an opportunity to do civil forfeiture possession of cars that are driving from Oregon or Washington through Idaho. For example, that's a completely illegal state and they just targeted you because you're coming from a different state. Then when they get out there, they created a reason to get the dog out and then that causes them to point at the car and then they take whatever money you've got and the car, seize it, and sell it, and they make you go get a lawyer to get it. Say that there wasn't anything in there in the dark. You have to go through the process of talking about how canines can be triggered to point at something and that they weren't reacting to anything that was in the car, I mean this the unscrupulous corrupt they're using that. This has been documented, it's beenPolitico, it's been in Mother Jones, all these articles on this and they're letting that happen throughout the United States that's why I don't drive through the South and Idaho.
Jeremy Robbins: Federal legalization would be great. I don't think that that's going to happen. Before that though, if they could somehow or another figure out the banking that would be huge. We are an ancillary. We touch cannabis but we don't sell cannabis and we definitely don't collect taxes on it. We still have a very challenging time with banking. We've been rejected by several banks because we are nonprofit. The word cannabis they don't like. The patchwork of laws so you know that people can get Delta-8 all over the place instead of you know, here and there, and there are still places where cannabis is illegal, and people are still going to jail for it. That's got to change. It is a plan so, those are those are my hopes over the next five years.
Benedicktus: I would add to that that all healthcare curriculum includes cannabis. Jeremy and I have just recently attended an online 2-day symposium by Stockton University. There were presentations on medical cannabis, on legal cannabis, all done in university, community, education, or university settings, classes so there's movement in that. It's happening a lot of on the East Coast. Cornell, some in New Jersey, Stockton's in New Jersey, Robert Mejia, I think his name is, so we're going to get involved with that. We'll be part of doing a talk maybe in the next quarter when they have it but, it was wonderful to see all the people talking you know all these educators talking about what's happening in their area and how they can grow hemp and what the communities response to it is, what the colleges response, and the university and how law schools are teaching about cannabis law.
Stay tuned for further featured moments from this exciting interview!
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