Marijuana Business Magazine July 2018

marijuana industry. That means there may wind up being more congres- sional appetite for rescheduling than descheduling, depending on how much political clout pharmaceutical companies want to exert. It’s a scenario that scares the hell out of MMJ advocates, precisely because they don’t want Big Pharma to take over the cannabis industry. There are also questions about how tax reform may work. If U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, is successful in his attempt to exempt state-licensed cannabis companies from the maligned 280E provision of the U.S. tax code, it will cost the federal government a heap of money in taxes that plenty of MJ companies currently pay. That would call into question how the government could replace that lost revenue (especially given the $1.5 trillion tax cut Republicans passed last year), and it would create yet another political obstacle for the MJ industry. An Easy Win? One of the easiest options for Congress – if members next year want an easy political win – will be to pass a stand-alone version of the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer Amend- ment, which would forever bar the Department of Justice from prosecut- ing state-licensed MMJ companies. Or, if there’s the political will, Con- gress could go a step further and approve a similar bill to protect all state-licensed cannabis businesses, including recreational ones. But such legislation would leave marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, meaning interstate can- nabis commerce would remain illegal, and 280E would remain in effect. So, while that would be a landmark vic- tory, it wouldn’t solve all the indus- try’s problems. In short, there are plenty of rea- sons to be hopeful Congress will take meaningful action in the next year or so when it comes to cannabis. Just how that may emerge, how- ever, remains to be determined. ◆ John Schroyer is senior reporter at Marijuana Business Daily. Reach him at johns@mjbizdaily.com .