Of course they’d say that, they need to raise money and quickly, in order to survive all of this !
Hold your horses we say.
There’s a lot of new politics out there in the US that mean it could go either way.
The regulated market birthed by the states isn’t going to go away but to say that in the new post pandemic world …..yep….. the forces of change will sweep away any opposition to Federal legalization is either overly hopeful or just plain foolish.
CNBC report
U.S. cannabis CEOs say the chances for federal marijuana legalization will dramatically increase in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, after several states declared dispensaries essential businesses, allowing them to remain open during stay-at-home orders aimed at halting the spread of the virus.
We understand this hope but believe it to be misplaced
“One of the programs by the federal government right after the Great Depression was to focus on tax revenue generation,” said Curaleaf Executive Chairman Boris Jordan. “They lifted prohibition on alcohol and therefore started to tax it — and it became a major revenue generator for both the federal and the local governments around the country.”
Here’s some more from the CNBC report (below) and here at CLR we don’t deny that some of what is said is common sense but as stated below the CEOs CNBC are talking to run companies that have lost up to 60% of their value since the beginning of the year and unless they spruik to the politicians and investors they’ll be out of a job by Q.3 this year.
We’ve noted during this 420 season a number of companies pushing the return of the big cannabis company model (albeit less of them, each CEO thinks it’s their company that’ll survive)
We’d hope for a stronger SME model that works closely with good growers who might otherwise deal in a greyer market and companies that don’t just talk about their customers being valuable but actually walk the walk rather than just doing the talk.
As with the rest of the economy it really is wait and see but the corporate cannabis dream has taken a battering and we’d much rather see an industry with lots of these (Oregonians will know)
rather than these
“Every state that has progress on the issue of cannabis, increases the likelihood and the momentum of a broader success down in Washington D.C.,” said Bachtell. “Each additional state that passes an adult-use law now has two senators that come from states that have cannabis programs. They are going to be more familiar with it; they are going to understand the way the industry is developed, can work and can be a societal benefit.”
U.S. federal adult-use legalization has been described by many as “the holy grail” for cannabis producers. The CEOs agree proposed legislation like the SAFE Banking Act, which would allow cannabis companies to open bank accounts and accept credit cards, is progress. But Jordan, the Executive Chairman at Curaleaf, says the U.S. producers also need the ability to list on U.S. exchanges and access capital markets.
Curaleaf, Cresco Labs and Green Thumb Industries’ shares have all lost 60% of their value or more over the past year. Canaccord Genuity estimates that approximately 70% of cannabis shareholders are retail investors. All the CEOs believe legalization would help bring capital to the industry, but Kovler says the public is underestimating the impact a legal cannabis industry could have on other parts of a post-pandemic economy.
“To stand up a brand new consumer product business that big, people don’t understand that yet,” said Kovler, who believes legalization would have a ripple effect across industries. “Literally $300 to $500 million dollars in capital expenditure in Illinois alone to build the facilities — lots of labor, lots of steel and concrete, HVACs, jobs, massive real estate demand. It’s a big, big industry.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/19/how-the-covid-19-crisis-may-impact-cannabis-legalization.html
