The Interstate Cannabis Market Versus the Regulated Market
An Excellent Discussion About Why the Cannabis Industry Seems So Broken
There was an excellent cannabis webcast this week that in my humble opinion was really important. And it had nothing to do with SAFE Banking or Congressional reform of cannabis. Instead it was about the future of cannabis, which is interstate commerce.
It was free and open to the public and hosted by Howard Penney of Hedgeye and moderated by Marc Hauser, who by the way writes an excellent Substack found here:
Adam Smith of the Alliance for Sensible Markets was on the panel but nothing he said would be a surprise to any of my long-time readers as I’ve interviewed Adam Smith before about interstate commerce.
The stars of the podcast were Rafi Crockett of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition and Matt Lee, the lead attorney for the California Department of Cannabis Control, who wrote the memo to the California Attorney General saying that in his opinion, there is no difference between intrastate commerce and interstate commerce from a Federal legal perspective.
They explain in very clear detail how the cannabis industry is fighting against the laws of economics and how interstate commerce restrictions are hurting everyone in the cannabis ecosystem.
My favorite part was how Rafi referred to the legal and illicit markets. She says that there is now a “fake regulated,” almost artificial, State-led market that is propped up by states enforcing interstate commerce restrictions. And then there is the larger illicit market that is the “real interstate commerce” market that has existed for decades. And this makes sense as most analysts estimate that the illicit market is at least twice the size of the legal market.
More and more people including investors, regulators, and lawmakers are realizing just how painful it is to fight the law of economics and to enforce interstate commerce restrictions.
The whole discussion is excellent and can be found here:
Hedgeye's Interstate Commerce Webcast Link
Next up on the interstate commerce calendar is California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s opinion on interstate commerce. And I think that is when the fireworks should begin.