It’s pretty amazing the lengths collectives/dispensaries have to go to make their business legitimate these days.  The state of California talks about all the revenue they are going to collect by taxing medical marijuana sales… but how can they do that when collectives and clinics are not allowed to open a bank account! Because marijuana is illegal Federally and the banks must comply with Federal law they are simply refusing to allow dispensaries to open bank accounts.

Not having a bank account creates plenty of problems for the state.  The first is that dispensaries have to go ALL CASH.  They can’t accept credit cards because the merchant account holders won’t open an account.   And banks won’t let them keep money there.   The result???  People are taking the money and stashing it “under the mattress”.

You tell me how the state is going to track revenue when they dispensaries deal in all cash and don’t have statements to show for any of it??  It is a rhetorical question obviously because there is no way for the state to track the money coming in and going out.

Personally, I had Bank of America freeze all of my bank accounts because they thought I was a dispensary…. when in fact I am a doctors office.  Unfortunate the name of my practice, Medical cannabis of Southern California, triggered some internal audit and with ones days notice they told me to pack up and go home.   Amazing but that is the reality.

So before we get all excited about potential tax revenue for the State lets fix the one major roadblock to collecting revenue… which is trackable accounts.