Interstate Commerce Call.
Cannabis Interstate Commerce Webcast:
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We are at a pivotal point in the history of the cannabis market, with thousands of small farms and businesses that have failed or are on the verge of failure. In addition, millions of legal patients and consumers remain stuck in illicit markets due to high prices and poor selection/quality in many state markets. The largest Cannabis ETF is down 90% from its peak in February 2021 as the industry has collapsed on an inefficient system of failed state-siloed markets leading to significant excess legal cultivation capacity.
The status quo is not a path forward for current cannabis investors or industry participants willing to acknowledge that the industry is broken. Not to mention that the current structure of state-soiled markets will disappear with the inevitable federal legalization. Why are we continuing to misalign incentives in cultivation that will soon be non-competitive? The cannabis industry has raised over $20 billion in debt and equity since 2018; the 15 largest publicly traded only have a market value of $11 billion. The industry has lost billions of dollars, and more will be lost if there is no significant reshaping of the industry fundamentals.
From a legal perspective, we are on the cusp of the single most important and least recognized shift in the economics of legal cannabis since WA and CO were first legalized in 2012. Our conversation about the potential for Interstate Commerce will be the first-ever public forum in which state officials from producer and consumer markets discuss interstate commerce (in advance of fed legalization) in real, informed terms, including its pathway, likelihood, and its desirability.
JUST STOP
Over the weekend, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke at a marijuana rally in NYC, vowing again to pass federal cannabis banking reform legislation as Congress works to end prohibition. He told attendees that there’s ample reason to celebrate, from the rollout of New York’s adult-use market to progress on federal cannabis policy reform on Capitol Hill. There has been absolutely zero progress made by the federal government on this topic over the past 4 years. There is no reason to celebrate that. “We struck a real victory here in New York with legalization, which I pushed the legislature to do,” Schumer said. “And while there are definitely real changes in implementation in this state, no one—no one—can take away what legalizing marijuana means as a bellwether in this country. Now Congress has to catch up. I’m working on Congress to catch up to New York.” First, New York needs to catch up to the other legal states because this market is an absolute zoo. “We will put the bill on the floor—god willing we get the votes in committee—and we will add to it expungement of the records of all of those who suffered from the over-criminalization of marijuana,” Schumer said at the event. ” The SAFE Banking Act is a good thing.” Secondly, SAFE has a zero percent chance of getting passed in the Senate with any type of social justice language attached to the bill. As we have seen repeatedly, these are just political comments that should carry zero weight to this industry.
