Federal marijuana reform is on the horizon how operators are preparing

George Archos’ Christmas list this year is the same it was the year before, and the year before that.All the CEO of marijuana multistate operator Verano Holdings wants is for his company to be treated like a normal business, by Meta and by the Internal Revenue Service and by everyone in between.

Figuring out how to get there – and how to get there as quickly as possible, with the minimum amount of stress and fuss – is the tricky part, and the subject of a discussion with other industry leaders today at MJBizCon. ADVERTISEMENT The wish list at Chicago-based Verano, which operates in 12 states, is similar to other C-suites in the cannabis industry.

Possibly top of the list is long-awaited relief from Internal Revenue Code section 280E – which will arrive as soon as President Donald Trump decides to follow through with downgrading cannabis’ status under federal law.It’s old news, but it’s also very hard to overstate marijuana rescheduling’s importance to plant-touching companies.

Verano estimates it’s spent as much as $100 million in excess taxes — cash that could have funded expansion, product development or other costs.However, marijuana rescheduling by itself won’t solve the puzzle, as other industry leaders participating in the panel discussion “Federal Reform on the Horizon: Preparing for the Next Era of Cannabis” will note.

Joining Archos are Shanita Penny, executive director of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education and Regulation (CPEAR), and Charlie Bachtell, CEO of Chicago-based cannabis multistate operator Cresco Labs.All the cannabis industry wants for Christmas – and every other holiday Congress and Trump gave the $32 billion legal cannabis industry its biggest-ever win — and one that lobbyists in Washington have demanded for years — when it redefined hemp to exclude intoxicating THC and other cannabinoids.

But closing the loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that sa...