RETAIL MARIJUANA

The booming medical marijuana industry is creating opportunities and challenges for the state's real estate companies

Realtors took up marijuana last weekend

— to talk about, I mean — at their annual conference and expo in San Francisco.

A panel at “Marijuana Legalization: Business Headache or Opportunity?” came up with nothing that property owners, brokers and tenants haven't already been dealing with in Oklahoma and the 32 other states with legal medical marijuana.

Two things bear repeating, repeating, repeating:

Any marijuana possession, cultivation or use, medical or otherwise, is a federal crime that can lead to fines and prison — and before the guy on Twitter who accused me of trying to scare people the last time I mentioned that even gets started: Dude, don't.

I know elder church ladies using marijuana like a certain TV granny in a Beverly Hills mansion used to nip a jug of moonshine as rheumatiz' medicine, and I know people using it as part of a comprehensive pain management program. If the peripheral neuropathy that has developed in my feet the past year gets bad enough, I will get a marijuana card and toke it to the Lord in prayer myself. Or try gummy bears if they're low-carb.

If the federal government decided to crack down on marijuana now, it would hurt innocent people. It would break hearts. And that is exactly why we have to keep saying, and reminding ourselves and everyone, that it could happen.

So no one will be surprised, and so the rest of us will be ready to console and lend help however we can to those stricken with pain, who found relief only to be robbed of it. I take that possibility, however unlikely it seems, seriously.

Now, "signals" from the Donald Trump administration "indicate" that the federal government will not prosecute state-legalized marijuana "entities," according to Megan Booth, director of federal housing and commercial policy for the National Association of Realtors, who was on the panel.

That does not "imply" "much" "cover," especially considering a civil trick the federal government has up its sleeve even if it never enforces the criminal law.

“There is still a federal law called civil asset forfeiture that allows the federal government to seize any property associated with an illegal activity. That's something you should know if you get involved with cannabis businesses,” Booth said.

“It is not very often used by the federal government for state-legal activities," she added, "and I don't think it is a tool the federal government will use randomly.”

Yes, well. Panelist Rick

Payne, president and CEO of Cannabis Real Estate Consultants, San Diego, said, “The reality is that the federal government could at any point in time decide to enforce this issue.”

Panelist Neil Kalin, assistant general counsel for the California Association of Realtors, said, “On the federal side, there is no way to minimize risk. So you have to ask yourself, are you willing to live and work in a field where you are subject to federal prosecution?”

The other thing that bears repeating, repeating, repeating is the banking thing.

There isn't any in the marijuana business, not legal and insured anyway. It's cash only, no credit cards.

If Congress can't get legal medical marijuana passed, legal cannabis banking, at least, would lend stability to the business and make it easier on patients.

The National Association of Realtors has no official policy on marijuana legalization. It does support the easing of banking restrictions and has lobbied for H.R. 1595, the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House of Representatives on Sept. 25 of this year. The Senate has not yet been moved to take it up.

Businesses have to have a plan for dealing only with cash, Kalin said.

"What are you going to do with the money that you're making? Are you going to keep it in a drawer in a back room? Are you going to purchase a safe? Are you going to try and find some sort of entity to hold the money? Because you're not likely to find an FDIC bank that is willing to do so,” he said. “If the client is unsophisticated, you're going to have to research this area and figure it out.”

The safety concerns are real on the patient side, too.

Dear Senate: Fix this before one of my church lady friends gets rolled in a strip center parking lot on her way into a dispensary.

Amen.