Key players in the booming marijuana business have been pushing the White House to consider loosening up federal laws that they believe have stymied the industry’s growth domestically – and have helped illegal cartels meet the pot demands of average Americans, On The Money has learned.
The basic problem Pot Inc. faces in the US is banking. Sale of weed and its various forms like gummies and even pot-laced soft drinks is estimated at between $40 billion and $60 billion, depending on what stoner source you’re quoting. It’s fully illegal in just a handful of states and is decriminalized or allowed for medical use in all the others.
But it might as well be illegal business because no US bank will touch the stuff. Federal law considers marijuana a controlled substance and overrides state decriminalization. That’s why a pot company can’t get a corporate bank account. US pot companies can’t list in the US stock markets and are forced to trade in the less liquid Canadian markets.
Without access to the US financial system, Pot Inc. will remain a backwater of smallish entrepreneurs producing creams and gummies as a pain-relief substitute, and of course, for people who love to blow a joint for recreational usage.
Longtime hedge fund trader Marc Cohodes would like to un-debank pot. Cohodes is both an investor in Pot Inc. and a medical user. He’s also now an advocate for the industry.
It’s not just to cash in on the bud boom. Cohodes tore his shoulder a few years back. Instead of popping Oxycontin, he dealt with the immense pain through cannabis-infused creams and gummies.
“I’m aware of the good cannabis can do,” he tells On The Money. “I’m also aware of how bad guys are making a move in the industry in the absence of a regulated, taxed US cannabis business that can get bank financing.”
These are arguments that the pot lobby is making to the Trump Treasury Department. Without access to US markets and banks, domestic pot companies can’t easily compete with criminal organizations, like the Mexican cartels. Criminals also ship pot into the US along with fentanyl, the highly addictive and deadly opioid that has thrust Middle America into a drug crisis. They use their windfall from pot and fentanyl for money laundering that keeps their criminal organizations flush with cash.
Give US pot companies access to banks, and access to the US public markets, and Pot Inc. could put the cartels out of business, the potheads say.
Is Trump listening? The pot lobby says Trump should with the midterms looming. There are 50 million people who partake in cannabis. Former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, a Trump friend, has his own weed-related company. Joe Rogan, the popular podcaster who endorsed Trump in 2024, is an advocate.
Pot advocates point to reports that the White House is now pressuring members of Congress to provide banking services to US pot companies. (A White House press rep didn’t confirm the report in a trade publication called The Marjiuana Herald).
Plus, the advocates say there’s a parallel to crypto. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump courted crypto and its similarly significant voting block and achieved the desired results. He’s now delivering with lighter crypto regulations and ending the debanking of digital coin businesses that occurred during the Biden years.
But he still hasn’t delivered for Pot Inc. and there are conflicting signs he will. His tariffs, for example, will likely cause pot prices to increase because cannabis-related products are manufactured overseas. Plus, he recently issued a not-so-pot-friendly executive order to “Make Our Nation’s Capital Safe and Beautiful,” a broad crackdown on crime and other forms of social decay in Washington, DC.
The order cited “DC’s failed policies” that “opened the door to disorder.”
Among them: Decriminalized marijuana.
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