A Closer Look at Cannabis

Blog Post

December 8, 2023

The following text is an excerpt from the Akron Beacon Journal, published on December 7, 2023:

Public health, enforcement and more: Your questions answered about marijuana legalization

Patrick Williams Special to the Akron Beacon Journal
Published 6:05 a.m. ET Dec. 7, 2023 | Updated 6:06 a.m. ET Dec. 7, 2023

At the Nov. 30 Akron Roundtable event "A Closer Look at Cannabis," moderated by Andrew Meyer, deputy editor of news Ideastream Public Media, a varied group of panelists spoke about expected and potential outcomes and efforts of marijuana legalization.

When will the general public be able to purchase marijuana?

BMD Member, Victoria L. Ferrise, shared that she does not expect commercial sales for adults ages 21 or older to begin until late September or early October 2024.

Currently, cannabis dispensaries will still only be accessible to medical marijuana patients.

Read the full article here (Content may require a paid subscription).

Posted by Brennan Manna Diamond

Explosive Growth in Pot of Gold Opportunity for Bank (and Other) Cannabis Lenders Driving Erosion of the Barriers

May 13, 2022

Our original article on bank lending to the cannabis industry anticipated that the convergence of interest between banks and the cannabis industry would draw more and larger banks to the industry. Banks were awash in liquidity with limited deployment options, while bankable cannabis businesses had rapidly growing needs for more and lower cost credit. Since then, the pot of gold opportunity for banks to lend into the cannabis industry has grown exponentially due to a combination of market constraints on equity causing a dramatic shift to debt and the ever-increasing capital needs of one of the country’s fastest growing industries. At the same time, hurdles to entry of new banks are being systematically cleared as the yellow brick road to the cannabis industry’s access to the financial markets is being paved, brick by brick, by the progressively increasing number and size of banks that are now entering the market.

Posted by Stephen Lenn

Fluresh Cannabis’ Bank Loan: Moving Into the Mainstream

April 18, 2022

The announcement by Fluresh, a vertically integrated Michigan based cannabis business, of the closing of loans from a federally insured commercial bank totaling almost $50 million represents an important landmark for both Fluresh and the cannabis industry writ large. For Fluresh, perhaps as important as the bottom-line benefits of lower cost financing, the fact that its operations and financials passed muster with a substantial commercial bank can be regarded as an important rite of passage. For the industry, it reflects its inexorable movement out of the shadows and into the mainstream. This substantiates the view that, whether or not any of pending the federal legislation is enacted, bank lending to the cannabis industry will continue to accelerate.

Posted by Stephen Lenn

Out of the Shadows | An Investor Summit Recap

February 9, 2022

After a COVID hiatus of more than 2 years, I rejoined the institutional cannabis investment speaker circuit, offering the closing remarks at the Kahner Global Cannabis Private Investment Summit in Coral Gables, Florida. My remarks addressed how banking developments are increasingly impacting cannabis investment, operating and financial strategies and decisions, for both plant touching and the growing array of ancillary businesses serving the industry.

Posted by Stephen Lenn with James Young

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