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What can the state do to protect cannabis businesses?

Everyone knows by now that weed is legal recreationally, here in the State of California. But there was some other green that just kind of fell through the cracks.

We're a month into legal marijuana sales and weed businesses still have a pretty big problem.

They can't do business with banks.

Why?

Because banks are federal institutions and when Attorney General Jeff Sessions cracked down on pot as a federally illegal drug - businesses that get money from pot sales were taken out of the banking loop.

"We have to take our taxes, put them in a bag and have a manager once a month go down to a state office and drop off the money." That, Matthew Z'Berg with Hugg's Alternative Care, says just isn't smart or safe. "It's a real public safety concern and from our company's standpoint, it's a real concern for the safety of our employees."

They can only take cash from customers, and only pay their employees in cash.

Z'Berg says, while they do everything they can to keep their customers - and employees safe - it'd be nice to have some back up from the government. "After all, it is a state recognized business that pays taxes."

So we took that concern straight to the state where they say they're working on a solution.

"The authors of this initiative didn't fully address this issue. I don't know why." John Chiang, the State Treasurer for California says, they have a lot of questions to weed through before that solution can come.

"Are we going to have brick and mortar, are we going to have an actual physical location or are we going to have online banking." Chiang says they're doing a feasibility study to answer those questions.

But the idea of driving up to a bank to make those deposits could be more than a year off. It's so far off, that they couldn't even give a timeline on the idea.

In the meantime, what can they do to keep cannabis businesses safe?

"Have a courier go pick up that cash instead of dealing directly with a financial institution."

Chiang says the courier service is just an idea for now, so that cannabis businesses can feel safer when paying taxes. That is, until a more permanent solution, like that state bank comes to fruition.

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