It is curious to see the recent dispensary complaints about restrictive regulation and unsustainable tax burdens.
What is missing from this discussion is the fact that Hawaii’s eight dispensaries — as well as our 34,000 lawfully registered medical cannabis patients, for that matter — are all technically federal criminals because the mere possession of cannabis without formal authorization from the Drug Enforcement Administration is a violation of federal law and the federal regulation of marijuana.
The problems that the dispensaries are describing are almost entirely due to the consequences of being continuing criminal enterprises and drug traffickers in the eyes of the federal government, which prohibits the dispensaries from utilizing regular banking services or deducting standard business expenses from their federal tax returns, resulting in an exorbitant federal tax burden of about 70% that must be paid in cash.
This should make us all wonder why the dispensaries are not screaming bloody murder to do something about ending the 22-year-old conflict between the state-authorized medical use of cannabis and the federal regulation of marijuana.
It may be that as federal criminals it is difficult for the dispensaries to request that our state lawmakers do something to end a conflict with federal drug law…
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It is curious to see the recent dispensary complaints about restrictive regulation and unsustainable tax burdens.
What is missing from this discussion is the fact that Hawaii’s eight dispensaries — as well as our 34,000 lawfully registered medical cannabis patients, for that matter — are all technically federal criminals because the mere possession of cannabis without formal authorization from the Drug Enforcement Administration is a violation of federal law and the federal regulation of marijuana.
The problems that the dispensaries are describing are almost entirely due to the consequences of being continuing criminal enterprises and drug traffickers in the eyes of the federal government, which prohibits the dispensaries from utilizing regular banking services or deducting standard business expenses from their federal tax returns, resulting in an exorbitant federal tax burden of about 70% that must be paid in cash.
This should make us all wonder why the dispensaries are not screaming bloody murder to do something about ending the 22-year-old conflict between the state-authorized medical use of cannabis and the federal regulation of marijuana.
It may be that as federal criminals it is difficult for the dispensaries to request that our state lawmakers do something to end a conflict with federal drug law…