FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Sweet Home Cannabama 8-19-24 guest cannabis attorney Jim Boland interviewed
It's time for Sweet Home, Cannabema, a show that will answer all your questions, provide accurate information, and dispel the myths of cannabis, and have your specific questions answered by emailing jennifer@cannabema.com. Or ticks are called 3430106. And now, for all things cannabis in Alabama, here's your host, Jennifer Boozer. Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm your host, Jennifer Boozer, owner and founder of Cannabema. You're listening to Sweet Home, Cannabema, right here on FM Talk, 106-5. We're here every Monday night at 7 o'clock Central, and you can catch us live as well on a video live stream on the Sweet Home, Cannabema, pages on Facebook and Instagram. Our address is 558 St. Francis Street in downtown Mobile. Our phone number is 251-255-5155. Our website is cannabema.com, and, of course, you can find us on all the social media pages under Sweet Home, Cannabema. So, welcome to the show. Tonight, we're going to have a great guest and get into some really interesting information that I think, hopefully, my industry friends and anybody who owns a small business can appreciate some of this advice. So, I want to go ahead and jump right on into the show tonight. I'd like to introduce our guest. His name is Jim Boland. He's the co-founder of the Cannabis Practice Group and chair of Holand Law Partners. Jim Boland is an attorney with extensive experience providing strategic advice to clients in the highly regulated cannabis space. He is at the forefront of the emerging cannabis industry, having started with a Chicago startup in 2018, which grew into the largest vertically integrated cannabis company in the United States during his tenure. Wow, welcome to the show, Jim. Thanks for having me, Jennifer. I'm glad to be here. Well, tell us a little bit about who you are and how you ended up in cannabis. This is the first question I ask every guest. We want to know who you are and what brought you to this plant that we all love. Sure, absolutely. So, I started in cannabis with a company called Cresco Labs out of Chicago. It was almost six years ago, exactly. I think tomorrow is my six-year anniversary in cannabis. Wow. You know, I like to think of myself as a long-time industry participant, I think as you would attest in cannabis and hemp, we like to think of it as dog years, right? That's right. So, six years is a long time, I feel like. Six years is a long time. I've been in almost seven and it is a long time. It is. There's a lot of challenges and I know we're going to talk about some of those tonight. So, I came out of law school, I was working for the city of Chicago. Somebody said, Cresco is hiring, you should think about joining Cresco, and I really kind of had to think about it for a second. And then, you know, everybody I talked to was like cannabis is the next big industry, right? Right. So, in the brand new industry, you don't get these kind of opportunities. Most people don't get them in their lifetime. Right. How often does a brand new industry come along, you're right. Exactly. So, I took the job and I immediately loved it. I loved working in cannabis. You know, I grew up, I grew up as a cannabis user myself, but I don't use it anymore. But, you know, I always have an affinity for the plants and then, you know, as the medical markets started to roll out, it really became more important to me through a medical perspective and seeing what it was doing for folks. And, you know, just recently, unfortunately, we had a dear friend pass away, but before he passed, he was using cannabis to help with his appetite and things like that while he was battling cancer. Right. So, I think it's-- Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, it's something that I believe in, it's something that I, you know, obviously, I work in the industry. I also teach a class on cannabis law, so it is, you know, it's a passion for me as well. And I'm sure that, you know, law is one thing, but cannabis law is a bear all its own. And it's like a shape shifter. We never know from one day to the next what shape it will be, what animal it will be. But, it's going to be probably big and ferocious. Yeah. That's right. I mean, that's part of what he said interesting, right? Right. It's not like a lot of areas of law where you're going off of the same statutes and it's very cookie cutter. Sometimes, I wish it was a little bit more cookie cutter than it is. I think that boring sounds really good, boring sometimes sounds so good to me. Like I don't know if I remember what that feels like. I know it. Well, I wanted to, you know, I wanted to talk to you, especially, you know, because you are in the legal realm of what we're doing, I want to talk about these threats to the hemp and the cannabis industries, you know, because we're all one big, giant, conglomerated industry, but then there are two distinct parts. And we face similar, we face similar challenges, a lot of the hemp side, we have benefits that the cannabis side doesn't have federally. But we always have to fight with the diet weed and all of that stuff too. And then explaining to people now suddenly why we're using correct terminology like cannabis and hemp instead of just weed and marijuana and all that good stuff. But I want to talk about these threats because they're on the state level, just like what's happening in Alabama we've talked about on the show and in Missouri. I heard that the bill that would have killed full spectrum CBD in California died, thankfully. So there's those things. And then there is the federal legislation as far as whether or not we're going to reschedule or de-schedule. And then there's the federal legislation on the hemp side with the Mary Miller amendment and these appropriations bills. I'm just sort of recapping for the listener and you kind of, you know, all these things are all happening at one time and it's a little bit crazy to keep up with. And so I wanted to kind of, with that in mind, I want to talk about mom and pop truly small hemp and cannabis businesses, not big companies that are, you know, nothing like truly even in big ones. I'm talking about people like me, one store, you know, maybe three or four stores, one small farm, you know, one small processor that makes great products. Those are the people that the sort of this is what I'm asking you these questions for. So with that in mind, with the increasing number of states using the court system to impose financially burdensome mandates on small cannabis and hemp businesses, how can the owners of these businesses like me proactively prepare to defend our legal operation without the backing of big can or big pharma or any other type of investor? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, unfortunately, I know you set up the question is we're not talking about truly when in the MSOs and the big players, but unfortunately they have a direct impact on businesses such as your own and other small businesses. Right. And you said this is, this is a political topic. It requires quite a bit of lobbying, I know that, you know, truly even those other companies are spending a lot of money on lobbying. And so I would say to the small businesses, number one is band together, you know, and I know that there's a lot of groups out there that are doing really good work. I mean, our mutual friend, Marty with the Alabama Cannabis Coalition. Yes. And we've been trying to help the Missouri Trade, the Hemp Trade Association, what they're doing, their group is dynamic. They have so much support, Alabama, not so much, but Missouri has a huge support network and they're going to be able to handle this, I think, no matter what comes their way. But there are lots of us in states that we don't have those sort of, we don't have investors. We don't have an after COVID and everything else. We've all kind of limp through a lot of us are week to week as it is, you know. And so that's why I wanted to kind of discuss what the real impact of it. We know how it's affecting the patients, all of the turmoil and all the uncertainty and the stalling, especially in states like Alabama where we can't quit suing each other long enough to get anybody any medicine. So you know, but those of us that are small, you know, it's kind of scary. What can we do if we're forced to sue and we don't have any way to do that, for instance, you know, like the groups in Missouri are suing, I guess the state or the governor, whoever, however that works with their executive order. But on the smaller scale, you know, those of us who would lovingly band together and fight together, but don't have that option, you know, I think that's where the breakdown is. The ones of us that don't have a group, because we're all at the end of the day, we're small businesses, there's terrible economic times, and then these laws hanging over our head are very scary, and we're going to have to go to a break in just a second, but I want to talk about how to handle the sudden legal shifts and the product bans, you know, all of these things that any one of these rulings, any one of these court cases, any one of these pieces of legislation could topple the whole industry and sort of how to handle that, you know. So, what have you seen besides being able to ban together, I mean, are you seeing small businesses that are, that are trying to kind of limp it along, or have you only talked to bigger companies? No, I mean, I think there are small companies that, like you said, you know, unfortunately are limping along and like you said, you know, keeping it weak to weak. I think that what we're seeing is really a crackdown on a specific set of products, right? Right, as opposed to the delta, you know, the delta 9, and so my, I think the number one piece of advice would be to make sure that your inventory is free of any of the products. Right. We're seeing this crackdown on pretty much across the country. I'm fixing to have to go to break. I'm so sorry to interrupt you, Jim. We come back to the break. We'll pick it up. Welcome back to Sweet Home, Canada. Welcome back to the show, everybody. You're listening to Sweet Home, Canada, here every Monday night at 7 o'clock on FM Talk 1065 and live streamed on the Sweet Home, Canada, Bama page on Facebook and Instagram. Tonight, we're talking with Jim Bowen, who is a cannabis lawyer. For the break, we were just getting into how to handle sudden legal shifts. So let me just ask this question. If a small cannabis or hemp business suddenly finds itself deemed illegal or faces a ban on most of its inventory, what immediate steps should those owners take to manage the existing contracts, leases, loans, and tax obligations, and we'll go back to what you said about managing your inventory. When we start there and give us some advice on what we should be doing to prepare, and then we'll go into the contracts and leases. Absolutely. So what I was saying before the break is that if you look at the crackdown that's happening across the country, for the most part, the bans are on the synthetic products, right? So I would start by ridding yourself of any inventory that includes those products. If it's the Delta 9 below a certain THC level, you can feel pretty safe that you're within the parameters of the farm bill. We're going towards this trend of low THC beverages, other types of products, becoming more and more popular, so I would recommend that folks hedge the best at this point and move towards what seems to be coming on the horizon, thinking about from a contractual standpoint. So anytime that we write a contract, and this is primarily for cannabis, but the point stands for hemp as well. Right. It's a legally binding contract. Right. Exactly. That point being that any time we write a contract in a highly regulated industry, we make sure that it is contingent upon all parties maintaining licensure, right? You have to be able to be operating your business to hold up your end of the contract, right? Yeah. And we also put a clause in there regarding, you know, this is still a federally illegal substance. And this thing I know we're going to talk about schedule three later, schedule three doesn't change the fact that cannabis is still going to be federally illegal. Not at all. Going to schedule three does not mean that it's being decriminalized. Right. So the point is still going to stand even after rescheduling. Of course. So if somebody is entering into a contract now, I would recommend that they, of course, have an attorney review it, but also make sure that you including a clause that if something were to happen, if the state all of a sudden determines that the products that you're selling are no longer legal, the federal government determines they're no longer legal, then the contract is no one void. There also has to be some understanding among all of the parties, right? Right. So the retailers and the manufacturers, and I feel like the retailers really sort of take the brunt of the head. Yes. I'm thinking that too. Yes. As a retailer, I have to agree. Unfortunately. Yeah. And so, you know, the manufacturers should be on the hook part of that as well. And so I would, you know, if you're looking at it, okay, I have all these contracts and how I have to go back, you know, you know, not to say the lawyerly thing, but I would have a first thing I would do is have a lawyer review them, of course, your see what your termination clauses look like, see what your outs are. Right. And then I would start to think about how, again, how can I hedge my bets? What can I do with my inventory that I do have? Can I still move it? Is there somewhere else that I can move into the state that I operate in allow for, for exporting? Right. In the state that I could take it to, right, you have to get a little bit creative. Right. Well, okay. So let me ask you this because I'm betting that I know for me, I didn't even have to have a license, retailers, and I think that's a travesty. I think retailers should be licensed and, and, and background check, just like everybody else because we're boots on the ground with the consumer. We're responsible for putting whatever goes out on the shelf and we're responsible for teaching or not teaching the customer what they need to know about those products. So I think we should be highly, you know, accounted for it also. But what did you say, sorry, I got a little frazzled there. I was trying to ask two different things. One is if you are in a situation like you have a highly regulated, so you've got these clauses in place that they say, okay, well, if the, you know, hits the fan, then we're covered in some way. But what does that actually mean? What actually happens if you do have that kind of protection, what then happens to the trickle down of all of those financial commitments, even like taxes that are still owed and, and like long term loans, like government loans from the SBA during COVID, like what happens to those things with or without the clause and is the clause going to give that much more protection? I mean, I'm in my boat, wherever I am in that boat, and it's not going to change because I don't think I have one of those clauses, but I don't know who I would have it with. I'm a single store owner and I'm not beholden to anybody except my landlords and, and people that I owe money to so, but when you have that clause for protection, does that change anything? Are these people not going to be excused from their debt, I guess, is what I'm saying? Well, it depends. We're sort of talking about two different things, right? So we're talking about one contracts with vendors or, you know, if you had a security provider or, you know, something like that, right? When you get into talking about taxes and the government loans, that's a different ball game. Well, yes, it's the government. That's the government. It's not negotiating with you, it's not negotiating. The terms with you, they're telling you what they're willing to offer and you either accept it or you don't. And I think that leaves us to a larger point, which is that nobody really knows what the outcome is that all of this is going to be. And I wish I could sit here and tell you that I do, but nobody knows, and it goes back to your original point, and this is something that we advocate for and hold on, which is that this is one plant, right? Yes. And we have the battle between cannabis, who we represent, and hemp, who we also represent. Right. It is the same plant. If you ask, I think, tell me if you disagree, but I think if you ask the majority of Americans, they think that there's a difference. They, no, they absolutely think there's a difference. And then there, well, there's the people that think it's the devil's lettuce and they don't care what you say, it's all the devil's lettuce. They're not wrong about the fact that it's all the same. It's the people who are like, in my case, because I live in such a lovely state, people are still, no matter how long I've been in business, how effective my products are, how much education I put out, people still have it in their minds, that if they can buy it from me legally, it can't be that great. It's not going, oh, I can eat the whole bar. No, we told you, we told you eat two out of 15 squares. I hear this once a week, oh, you tried to warn me, Jenny, so you know what I mean? It's a little bit crazy, but no, it is the same, we teach them. It is the same plant. And my business, and on this show, you can ask anyone who's ever listened, we talk about the fact that the only difference is that 1/100th of a percent more or less than 0.3 by dry weight, you know, and that THC is many things. It's not just the one thing on the CSA, it's many things. Absolutely. And the government, you and I talked about this a little bit the other day, the government has really pitted the industries against themselves, right, in a lot of ways. And my hope is that one of the outcomes of rescheduling is that it also leads to the farm bill finally being, you know, two years late as we are, two years late. Exactly, exactly. And we get some sort of continuity across it because to your point, you are putting out, I assume, you are putting out quality products that are safe, right, because I know how to, I know how to find those, yeah. Well, and that's it. And I think that that's, you know, I think what you're doing is great because I think you have to be able to show your patients, your customers where it's been sourced from, right? Yes. You have COAs for manufacturers. You can trace it all the way back. And even on this show, I have had most, if not all, of the brands and farms and manufacturers that we've ever had in the store. I try to get them all on the show. So not only do they trust the product because I said it's okay. They heard the CEO talk about his son that had epilepsy, which inspired him to quit his job and create this brand and they get to hear the stories and the wise and get to know that, yes, this is, these are the people that we want to do business with. I think we should all be as transparent as possible because there's either a massive amount of misinformation or there's the remnants of reefer madness and no one around us knows really what is what, especially not the consumer. Absolutely. To your point, and I thought it was a great point when you said that you think you should be licensed and I totally agree because if you're just an average consumer and you see that they're putting up these dispensaries that have all of the security and, right, all of these requirements and we're going through all these licensing processes. And then you walk into a gas station and you see something that looks the same, right? You're probably thinking to yourself, like, oh, this has got to be, you know, a knockoff. Right. Right. It's not safe. Or, well, now I've had the opposite where someone saw something in a gas station that looks similar to something I sold and because they trusted my product and assumed it was similar and they had, they got in a lot of trouble. They did not have a good time and, but the only reason it was an elderly lady, too, was so sad, but she had a really bad, severe reaction and God knows what it was. But she, she was a cross town for me and needed something quick and she just assumed the quality was there. When we come back from the break, we're going to talk some more with Jim Boland, cannabis lawyer from Chicago. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Sweet Home, Canabema. Now with all the information you want about cannabis, here's your host, Jennifer Boozer. Welcome to the show tonight. We're talking with Jim Boland, who is a cannabis lawyer for the whole in love partners. Jim, let's talk about, how do, how likely do you think? It is that the, now I know the Farm Bill isn't, isn't going to pass this year. They've already said basically it's not going to pass, correct? Correct. Okay. So if, you know, how likely do you think that when, when it does come up again, that something like the Mary Miller Amendment would succeed because we've got this other appropriations bill with it, with an identical amendment and then all of a sudden all of these other pro-himp amendments came into the fight and it's like, now there's all this stuff. How likely do you think there, that it is to change at all? I think it's hard to say, unfortunately, I mean, look, you, you don't have to look much further than the state like, a state like Florida, right? Where you have, you know, former President Trump and the current governor going at it, over, you know, the cannabis proposal that's on the, of the ballot in November. And now, you know, and now Governor DeSantis is leveraging the HEMP industry against them. So I think a lot of it, like, you know, a lot of things throughout the country is going to depend on what happens in November, right? What the outcome of this election is, I really hope, like I said earlier, I hope that with rescheduling that we're going to see a push towards continuity between the HEMP and cannabis industries. And we're going to finally going to get some, you know, actual, actual real guidelines around HEMP that's going to make it easier for, for HEMP businesses and really going to clear up some of the, the gray area that everybody lives in right now. What about the instances in the States, for instance, we'll use Missouri, you know, their governor coming up with this executive order saying, oh, we're going to just ban this outright, but people can still order it online from other States. But we're going to basically, you know, kneecap the whole HEMP industry, but just in Missouri. And you know, I know that those guys are poised to sue. How likely do you think, I mean, it seems so far fetched what some of the States are doing, just like here with the health department, there's no basis in those States laws. And yet they're, they're, they're basically forcing us into the court system on the state level. And a lot of these people, if they don't have a big support group, like Borohamp, or they're, they're losing everything. Well, and unfortunately, that's what, you know, that's what a lot of the, the larger companies and, and quite frankly, some of the state governments are banking on, right, is that folks don't have the resources to do it. It's going to take somebody with depockets to, to, to take the step. I do think that there's a legal basis for a challenge, but somebody's probably going to have to take it all the way to the Supreme Court, quite frankly, and it's going to require, like I said, somebody with depockets and the resources and the wherewithal to actually see it through and be that test case, and quite, and that's the problem right across our country is that a lot of times small businesses without being able to band together and pull resources. And even then you would need, you know, you would need a large donor, right, or a large group of people to financially donate money in smaller amounts, right. Right. Right. Quite, yeah, quite a few people. But it is possible. Um, and I do think that there is a challenge to be made. It's just a matter of who's going to be the test case, who's going to push it through. You saw it in the hemp beverage space, um, on the beverage side. Well, and that that's what partly this is about is drinks and edibles, the same thing in Alabama, drinks and edibles, all of a sudden everybody's crazy about drinks and edibles. And, um, and those, I don't know about other hemp stores, but I know those are, I mean, if you took edibles out of my store, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be there the next day. It's just a massive part of what we do. Well, it's funny speaking of the misinformation. So I'm from Chicago, but I actually live in North Carolina and a few months ago, I went to hear a North Carolina Senator speak. And he told me that, well, he told the audience that people only want to smoke this stuff. Nobody wants to, nobody wants to eat the other thing. I see. I don't smoke it at all. Right. I get, I get, I get it by the pound and I don't smoke it. Right. It doesn't, it doesn't reflect. Right. That's not what I need. It doesn't reflect the trends at all. Right. I think it's the smoking, I think it's the smoking part that they love to, to push to the forefront because it looks dangerous. It looks unhealthy. It looks like bad and sketchy and, you know, it's, it's dirty. And they're, and they're counting on that. And, you know, I mean, I, I sell a lot of smokeable flour, but I sell more edibles than I do smoke Yeah. Absolutely. And I was just laughing, I was reading this stuff earlier and reminding me that Alabama has that crazy law about if you're going to make edibles, they can only be peach flavored. Oh, yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's the medical cannabis program. One single flavor for the whole stinking state in its peach. And I think, I think I believe, and I may be wrong, but I believe that was someone on the commission, maybe the chair of the commission, it was their favorite or somebody's favorite. Somebody picked it. One dude. And I was like, really one flavor? So that's, we're already better than that. You know, we have about 20 kinds of gummies, much less all the flavors. That's so funny. I mean, if it was Georgia, maybe I could understand. Right. Right. Alabama. Exactly. Yeah. Well, in your opinion, I mean, since you do work in the legal end of things on the cannabis and the hemp side, do you believe that there is a world where hemp and the medical cannabis can coexist and well? I think we can. I think that the hemp products complement what they're doing in dispensaries because most dispensaries are doing higher THC concentrations and things that are much stronger than anything. Any single product could be at our store, but I do think that leaving CBD and CBG and CBN and all the others on the table is fair because not everyone will qualify for a medical card and not everyone, not everyone will get their needs met with just what is available at that dispensary. And I think that for the rest of the population that's used to being able to come to an establishment like mine, although it needs to be more heavily regulated and we would love to have legislation that says that so that they will stop saying we're unregulated and we don't want to be regulated. We want to be regulated, you know, we want, we want to be able to follow the rules. We're following the rules. There's just aren't many. And so. And that's the thing. I mean, you guys are one of the good actors. Right. There's a lot of bad. There are. There are. And you're not, you're not advocating for them. You're saying no, put some rules in place like there is with cannabis. And let the folks that want to be compliant, be compliant, act within the rules, right? And provide, you know, like I said, safe, quality products to answer your question. I do think that there is a world where cannabis and hemp can live, you know, without all of this, you know, without all of this disagreement. And again, it's crazy because I just, I know I'm repeating myself for like, it's the same question. Well, that's true. I'm asking you the question using the two words because most of the people listening know that there's a distinction. There are two programs. There are two sets of rules. All of that. And so, and I am much less well versed in the, the functioning medical cannabis space because ours is not functioning. And I did part of the way go through the application process and saw that. It was like 42 pages of instructions on how to apply. And so. Yeah. I did one of those applications. It wasn't fun. Oh, no. I can tell you that. It was brutal. And then I'm so glad I tell people all the time I was mad and disappointed and sad. And I was like, man, I fought just as hard as anybody else to get this bill passed. And, and I should be a part of this, you know, and it fell through because of my investors. And I was upset for about 24 hours. And then I was like, no, I don't want to work in three different counties. And no, no, I don't, you know, I like what I do. I love what I do. Well, and I want to stay right in two years later and nobody's open and I know I heard the. Thank God. Once again. Yes, sir. Because people are losing money. Absolutely. And I, you know, I heard the advertisement for our friend Antoine Mordecan. Yes. Native Black cultivation. I mean, God bless Antoine and everything that he put up with and getting through that process. And he is a frequent flyer on the show. He is a personal friend of mine and we lobbied together. And I am so incredibly proud for him and of him. And he comes on the show all the time to tell us what's going on because sometimes we need help. But no, he explains what's happening because he's there and he's affected by it. And he is very open and honest, unlike some of these other applicants that won't talk to us at all. And I appreciate that about him. Yeah. No, absolutely. And my point being that, you know, two years later, and there's no stores, right, and Antoine patient still can't get what they need. You guys are actually more functioning than medical cannabis program that was supposed to be up and running two years ago. Absolutely. You know, I do think, yeah, I'm so hopeful that there is a world where everybody can coexist. It's really up to the government, right. And I think one of the benefits of rescheduling for a number of reasons is going to be greater access to research. The more research there is, the more data there is to point to the health benefits of cannabis. It becomes more about wellness on, you know, at least on the medical side. Right. And people start to see, you know, and you have more research to point to, to show the benefits. And then I think that there is a market for the products that you guys sell. And it doesn't have to be, you know, as highly regulated. Right. And I don't think that rescheduling is going to do a whole lot to the hemp market. Yeah. No, I don't think so either. And I don't, you know, rescheduling is getting pushed for political reasons, right? Right. The process, the process itself of it being finalized is being pushed for political reasons. Again, we're almost at November, right, and this is not a coincidence that they're going to get it finished in October. Typically a rules process like this would take three times as long, four times as long, right? Right. But you have the attorney general, which, you know, which is great for my cannabis funds in much, the attorney general pushing for the rules process to be expedited. But what's the actual impact going to be? I think it's going to be a long time before we start to see that. I don't think the federal government knows what they're going to do. No, let's hold that thought. We've got to go to our last commercial break. But when we come back from the break, I want to pick up there because we definitely need to break down the impact of rescheduled because I do believe you're right. I don't know if it will have any impact on the hemp industry. However, it's going to trickle down to all of us eventually. But I want to talk about timing and things like that. So when we come back from the break, I want to know what is that going to look like. We'll be back right after the break. Stay with us. Welcome back to Sweet Home, Canabema. Now with all the information you want about cannabis, here's your host, Jennifer Boozer. Welcome back, everybody. Tonight we've been talking with Jim Bowen, who is a cannabis lawyer, and we've been talking about what about us? What about the hemp businesses and cannabis businesses who have these big legislative changes and amendments and attacks from the state on every level, all coming at one time. Some practical advice in these scenarios. Jim, we were just starting to talk about rescheduling, and it's a done deal, correct? Yes. Yeah. It's happening. So if you're following down the purposes, it's a done deal that's going to happen. All right. Okay. So what does that actually look like? I mean, we've got current medical cannabis businesses, farms, processors, and dispensaries all over the country in various states, under state programs. So what does federally rescheduling it to Schedule 3 and making it more researchable and prescribable actually mean, if I'm a current medical dispensary, what does that mean for me? Well, that's a great question. And again, as I've seen earlier, I'm not sure that anybody knows first, right? The hope is that from a tax perspective, it's going to alleviate the tax burdens that the cannabis companies currently have right now. There's a provision in the tax code, it's called 280E. For those of your listeners who are not familiar, it means that essentially it was set up for it was set up so that cocaine dealers couldn't take, couldn't take a tax deduction off of the money that they were making. And so it says that if you're, if you're selling a Schedule 1 narcotic, that you can't, you're, you're not allowed the same tax deductions as normal. I can't imagine. Do people like that even file their taxes? And so, you know, truly claims that they got around 280E last year. They claimed an $80 million refund. I don't know if they ever, if they actually got that or if that number was even close. Wow. But it is, it is a substantial number. Even for small businesses, it's a substantial number, you know, not being able to take regular everyday business tax deductions is very significant. It's a real impact on a, on a business and bottom line, especially a small business. And on top of the lack of banking and things like that credit, traditional loans, lines of credit, all of that, that's, that's why I'm asking now these questions because there's not a whole lot of places we can run ahead to. No, there's not, and, you know, there's more, there's more coming every day, but until there's, until rescheduling actually happens, and there's some relief at the federal level, a lot of the large banks, I mean, look, we, you know, our law firm had opened an account with Chase and three weeks later, they decided that our cannabis practice was too big. It was too much, too much of our available's was coming from the cannabis practice. And so they stopped banking with, they have a lot of banks. I've been, I've been ditched after really good sales from a national bank too. We made too much money. Yeah. So it's an example account that I brought to that bank out of, out of loyalty and, and gratefulness, got to be open in mind. Ooh, that's a long story. Anyway, they can, whether it's, whether it's banking or insurance or, you know, a lot of, again, regular. It makes you, well, I know everybody considers us high risk. So it's harder to get insurance if you can get any at all. It's like, well, like you said, it's hard to get, give your employees benefits. In some states, it's hard to get, get your employees a paycheck that can cash, you know? Yeah. Absolutely. What does this change though are, are, is rescheduling it so that it can be prescribable, going to create a situation where it can only be from a dispensary that has a pharmaceutical license or a pharmaceutical company. Do we know? Yeah. So that's a great question and nobody seems to know. Okay. I've been saying this for a long time. I, you know, I'm not really a conspiracy theorist, right? But my conspiracy theory is that, yes, you're going to see big pharma. Like my, my, I mean, we all can smell it, you know, my worst case scenario is that big pharma comes in and takes over a bulk of the industry, right? That you become basically like pharmacies, you have to have FDA licenses, but I don't know that that's necessarily going to happen just because, um, and that has to do more with my dislike of big pharma. Well, of course. Of course. I think that that's likely, likely to happen because of the state programs. Well, some people, some people believe that that's, that's what this whole thing is for. It's orchestrated so that now all of the medical cannabis dispensaries have to be pharmacies and giving big pharma a big advantage because they have lots and lots of money and giving the, the already big cannabis companies because there are a few and advantage because again, they have the funds and the, and the, and the reach and the influence. Um, and what about, you know, I know in Oklahoma, I just read this week, there are companies that are applying for pharmaceutical licenses already, which I thought would take like four years, doesn't take several years to qualify for a pharmaceutical license with the government. It does. And you know, it's, it's, uh, you know, the, the licensing process in most states or cannabis is very strict, some, not as strict as others. Um, but I bet those pharmaceuticals, astronauts, it's even worse. It's even worse. And the one thing that I keep coming back to, because we work with a lot of social equity groups, um, and you know, a lot of those folks qualify based on past convictions, convictions that make you ineligible for FDA licenses. So what happens to all the states that have, you know, created a framework based on social equity, Illinois, for example, Maryland is another good example. Right. And you have folks that have qualified on the basis of having a marijuana action. And then you're going to tell them that you have to get an FDA license, but you can't pass the background. Right. Yeah. Well that's kind of like a lot of the other things like in Alabama, they were going to ban, uh, vapes and included CBD and the definition. So we would have to go through the FDA process, but the FDA process doesn't exist. So you can get on our list as soon as you pass the test, but you can't take the test. There is no test. Yeah. I mean, my, you know, I think the saving grace here is that the federal government doesn't have the resources to go through all of that right now. Well, yeah, I think this whole thing is going to be a nightmare and they do they have the ability to go, go to every single dispensary just in state of California. Exactly. There's, there's no way that's the thing. They don't have the resources for the enforcement. Yeah. Right. So that's why I'm saying, like, yes, is it possible that down the road, that's what this all is leading to. Right. It's certainly possible. I wouldn't, I wouldn't be shocked. Let's put it that way. But I don't think that it's something that's going to happen overnight. It's going to take a very long time for that to actually get put into play. Well, that makes me feel better and we're running out of time, Jim. I want to be able to thank you. And would you like to tell us where we can find your firm, maybe follow you and learn some of this stuff as it's happening? Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much for inviting Jennifer really appreciated it. Anyone can find us at hole on law.com. We also have a YouTube page. It's called above the haze where we talk to a lot of folks in the industry. It's an educational platform. We talk about a lot of different topics, not just legal aspects, but research and other areas of interest so people can check us out there. And also on our LinkedIn page, we have an above the haze LinkedIn page as well. All right. Well, you guys can check out Jim's law firm and find out what he is doing. And I'm sure that you can probably get some good insights. I know I just recently got back on to LinkedIn and I have, I used to hate doing it because it was all salesy. But anyway, go find him on LinkedIn for sure. Join us every Monday night right here on FFTOT 1006 5 and live on the stream on the suite home. Canabama page every week 7 p.m. And follow us on canabama.com and come see us at 558 St. Francis Street in downtown Mobile. Thank you so much again, Jim, for being on the show tonight. I really appreciate your insight and your willingness to kind of sit and talk us through this. I hope my questions weren't too elementary for you. No, not at all. They were great. Thank you. All right. Well, listen, and keep us posted too. I think I could definitely use the updates from somebody who knows what's actually going on. There's so much talk, talk, talk, talk amongst the hip people, amongst the weed people, amongst all of us together, and no one ever seems to really know what any of it means. And so that's why I wanted to have you on and talk about these things because I think we're all sort of just flying blind and we appreciate your insight and your willingness to share again. Absolutely. Thanks, Jennifer. All right. We'll see you guys next week on Sweet Home Canabama. Like I said, every Monday night at 7 p.m. You can find us right here and you can email us if you have any questions or suggestions. email me personally. Jennifer at canabama.com anytime. And we will get right back to you as soon as we can. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next week on Sweet Home Canabama. Good night. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] (upbeat music)