Marijuana Businesses Are Raking In Money—And The IRS Will Take Most Of It

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OREGON: The line along Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard looked like a windfall for Farma.

A crowd started gathering outside the Portland medical-marijuana dispensary shortly before 10 am on Oct. 1, the first day of legal recreational pot sales in Oregon. By the end of the day, more than 250 customers at Farma bought weed at $70 a quarter-ounce.

But Farma co-owner Jeremy Plumb isn’t expecting to keep much of the money.

“People don’t understand,” Plumb says. “They see this huge volume of business and they think we must be making money hand over fist.”

The long lines and eager customers at Portland’s pot dispensaries this week disguise a bitter financial reality: Much of the cash from Oregon’s legal weed sales is being inhaled by the Internal Revenue Service.

Congress Yawns At Colorado Delegation’s Marijuana Banking Bill

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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: As cannabis workers carry cash by the briefcase throughout Colorado, the lack of interest in Washington suggests that a bill to green-light banking practices for the marijuana industry is headed nowhere fast.

Federal legislation that could end cash-only practices in the marijuana industry will likely remain stuck in committee this year, with near silence from Washington lawmakers as to why it has.

A Denver Post survey of the two House committees that could take immediate action found only one member outside the bill’s signed supporters and the Colorado delegation had interest in discussing the subject.