Indoor Harvest Corp (INQD)

[HATTER]

FROM TODAY:

“Las Vegas-based cannabis investor Leslie Bocskor said such restrictions often push cannabis operators to seek less savory sources of financing than they otherwise would need to. “We’ve created a gray market for money,” he said, “in the same way that we had a gray market for cannabis.”

Just providing customers a normal payment experience can be an ordeal. Rolling Stone reported that, for a time before MedMen went public, its stores accepted credit cards. It cloaked the practice from the card companies, which do not want to serve pot businesses, by registering under the name of an obscure corporate subsidiary. Now, the company no longer accepts credit, advertising that it takes debit cards and cash instead.

Because of federal securities law, those companies that manage to shimmy through this obstacle course and grow large enough to seek financing in the public markets have to go abroad to do so. Bocskor lays some of the blame for MedMen’s troubles at the feet of its unusual foreign IPO. Being forced to go public in Canada, rather than on an American exchange, he argues, hobbles companies by forcing them to navigate an unfamiliar regulatory landscape. He said it also makes the stock less accessible to U.S. investors, who can be uncomfortable with foreign markets.

“It’s not specific to MedMen,” Bocskor said. “This is a challenge for anyone.””


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/news/magazine/2020/05/24/up-in-smoke-marijuana-med-men-249301