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The Feds and Banking

What is the difference between bacon and eggs? Well, the chicken is involved, but the pig is fully committed.

Today, all my business and personal bank accounts were shut down. Oink.

I am a consultant in the Cannabis Industry, and I work predominantly with banks and financial institutions trying to provide banking to this industry. I don’t own a dispensary, or grow anything, or run any business that touches the product — and I never have. I have never sold a gram of marijuana in my life, but I have bought a few on occasion.

So why did my bank accounts get shut down? Could it be because, if someone Google’s my name, they will find links to cannabis articles and quotes like this one? It seems like that is all it takes to lose access to the banking system in this country.

There is no appeals process here. There is no judge or jury. There is no right or wrong. I have never made a large cash deposit or withdrawal, but I recently opened a new account for a consulting company and I told them whom my clients were.

Yes, I told the truth.

In a way, I consider it a badge of honor that this happened. So many of my friends who work with dispensaries or are in the industry have fallen to the same fate. Banking truly is the choke point of the Cannabis Industry.

Because I work in the banking industry, I feel the need to be transparent in my application to open a bank account. Because of my transparency, I am denied access to a 15-year banking relationship with less than two weeks notice. This truly is the modern equivalent of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Well world, I believe in cannabis. I work in the Cannabis Industry. And now, I am going to try to open a new account somewhere.

Wish me luck.

Mark Goldfogel is a founder of C4EverSystems, a cash handling kiosk guaranteed to meet banking compliance guidelines for cannabis transactions, and was a co-founder of MJ Freeway, the popular point of sale software for cannabis businesses, guaranteed to meet government compliance regulations for cannabis. He held management positions at ADP and John Deere. You can reach him at [email protected].

 

 

Mark Goldfogel

Mark Goldfogel

Mark Goldfogel is an entrepreneur, consultant, writer, and speaker. He is credited with having first proposed “Seed to Sale Tracking” as a means of diversion control, taxation, and health and human safety to the State of Colorado. He co-founded the cannabis industry’s first compliance inventory control system and was a key advisor to The Fourth Corner Credit Union, a financial institution with a banking charter to support the “Hemp and Cannabis Movement.” He has advised States, non-industry companies wishing to enter the industry, and startup companies capitalizing on the opportunities and avoiding the potholes of the budding cannabis industries. For a free copy of his book, Smoking Something, The Cannabis Paradox10, (Amazon $24.20) please send an email to [email protected].

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