A recent Wired feature showcases companies that support the cannabis industry in crucial ways against the new war on drugs. Crucial might seem a dramatic word choice here, but without these ancillary companies provided tight payroll services and regulatory standard testing, it could open the cannabis industry to a very different type of drug war with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And we don’t need to remind you just how much Sessions distastes marijuana.
Just like a negative and misguided stigma remains associated with marijuana, a stigma permeates the cannabis industry, though on a much different scale. When someone says they work in the cannabis industry, those on the outside usually interpret that to mean the growing, selling, and distributing the plant itself. But that isn’t true.
As there is any other industry, working with cannabis includes secondary or ancillary businesses to the product itself. Technically speaking, The Fresh Toast falls within this category. We are a website whose workers don’t touch the plant in our professional capacities, but would fall under the broad category of being within the cannabis industry regardless.
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Related Story: Did Sessions Just Escalate The War on Drugs?
What worries cannabis entrepreneurs […] most isn’t some blatant crackdown on dispensaries, but a more surreptitious war on drugs, in which government overseers like the Department of Labor or the Internal Revenue Service catch cannabis companies slipping up on the more mundane details of complying with laws around safety, environmental standards, and taxes. In other words, to stop pot, the Trump administration may find the answer in what it ostensibly despises most: government regulation.
As any small business owner could tell you, complying with state and local regulations are burdensome enough on their own. Now just imagine the federal government deems your business’ product illegal and doesn’t want you profiting from such an endeavor.
That has, as Wired wrote, weirdly created a business opportunity for companies willing to help guide those in the cannabis industry to maintain standards and regulations. A company like Adistry helps companies legally advertise their products while Front Range Biosciences will track cannabis quality across various growers. There are also companies to assist with payroll and run public relations and devise supply chains.
“There’s been a sea change when you look at the kind of support resources available to a legal cannabis business today,” as Steve DeAngelo, who opened one of California’s first medical marijuana dispensaries in 2006, told Wired.
To continue to thrive, the cannabis industry will need each other ensuring everyone is playing by the rules. Because if you make just one mistake, you might be hearing from Sessions.
