Cannabis in the USA: An illegal tax-paying business
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2020
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
America’s cannabis industry is worth tens of billions of dollar and it generates tax revenues and jobs. But it is barred from accessing most financial services. This is because, while legal in an increasing number US states, cannabis remains illegal at a federal level. We hear what it’s like running a cannabis business from Ken Churchill of the West Coast Cannabis Club in California. Emily Dufton, author of Grass Roots: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Marijuana in America, explains how the US went from "Just Say No" in the 1980s to yes now. And Robert Hoban, a lawyer who specialises in cannabis, explains why two currently empty Georgia Senate seats could determine whether the Biden administration can fulfil its pledge to decriminalise cannabis.
(Picture: purchasing legal marijuana at a dispensary. Credit: Getty Images.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC with me, Manuel Saragossa. |
| 0:06.6 | Coming up, the multi-billion dollar American industry that can't access financial services. |
| 0:12.8 | I absolutely believe that we will not have access to regular banking as long as cannabis is a Schedule 1 narcotic in the United States. |
| 0:22.7 | Yes, we're talking about America's cannabis growers, retailers and wholesalers. |
| 0:27.2 | Their business is legal in an ever-increasing number of American states. |
| 0:31.2 | But will it ever be legal nationally? |
| 0:33.4 | Marijuana is a gateway drug. |
| 0:35.7 | Make no mistake about that. It undoubtedly leads to further and much more |
| 0:41.4 | dangerous drug use. That's coming up here in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:49.0 | We very literally would get together $80,000 to $100,000. We would have to face the bills, |
| 0:56.1 | put the ones and fives together, and drive about two and a half hours to the nearest IRS station |
| 1:02.0 | where we would drop off a duffel bag full of cash money. And that is how it operated for about |
| 1:10.4 | three years for us. Ken Churchill there, CEO and |
| 1:13.4 | founder of the California-based West Coast Cannabis Club, a business that grows, distributes, |
| 1:19.5 | and retails cannabis products. And no, he wasn't talking about a drug deal. He's talking about |
| 1:24.8 | how, until recently, he went about paying his business taxes. |
| 1:28.9 | The IRS station where he dropped off that duffel bag full of cash is the US tax office, because |
| 1:34.3 | for years now, his business has operated in a legal grey zone, which means that even though |
| 1:39.3 | he pays taxes, his company can't fully access all financial services. |
| 1:46.0 | Who had the job of counting the cash? |
| 1:52.7 | Oh, that was me, yeah, sitting in my apartment in the most ridiculous way possible, |
| 1:57.8 | just trying to pay our taxes and stay as above board as possible. |
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