Cannabis companies have been poised to launch their products for several years, and are actually eating at the top. Cannabis users have been ready to buy their products for longer, but are tired of waiting, so they have turned to the illicit market.

When cannabis became legal in Colorado and Washington in 2012, then Oregon and later in the 39 states that went legal, people flocked to local stores and pharmacies and waited in line for hours. But over the years, and with legal marijuana taxed exorbitantly and subjected to a patchwork of government regulations, those who once stood in line are now buying from legacy vendors who are selling their products as they have for the past five decades.

No way to handle a billion dollar industry

Legal cannabis companies rightly complain that the unregulated market is undercutting the legal market, which also has the downside of still being considered legal illegal under federal law. One of the more serious results of this US policy, in place since the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970, is that federally legal pot companies lack access to credit, capital, bank accounts and tax reform, to name a few obstacles .

Initiatives to reform cannabis banking have been regularly shot down by Congress in recent years. The youngest was a last desperate attempt by Senate Chairman Chuck Schumer ao Who was hoping for a lame Christmas miracle: the inclusion of the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act (SAFE) in the $1.7 trillion funding bill. That didn’t happen.

“Unfortunately, this is a win for the illegal market that pays no taxes and has no regulations or audit assurances,” said Boris Jordan, co-founder and chief executive officer of Curaleaf CURA KURLFand adds that the entire industry will suffer.

Jordan got that right. Cannabis stocks fell sharply after SAFE’s downfall, pushing the sector even lower from its 2018-2019 heyday. The biggest…