To put it bluntly, Cheech and Chong couldn't cut it in Ohio's legalized cannabis industry. Costs run high, regulations are strict, and it takes smarts to make a business work.
"It's not just somebody randomly growing pot in their basement," says Eric Grischow, a CPA who is a manager in the Canfield office of HBK CPAs and Consultants and regional director for HBK Cannabis Solutions. "These are state-of-the-art facilities, heavily secured areas, very smart individuals on the chemistry and biology side that are doing these grow operations – very smart marketing people, smart general managers at the dispensary level."
Cannabis businesses face expenses, hurdles and challenges that businesses in other industries don't. "There are a lot of financial challenges because we don't have the same access to capital," says Terrell Washington, owner of Leaf Relief, a cannabis dispensary on Market Street in Youngstown.
While legal in Ohio, cannabis remains illegal under federal law, so most banks won't loan money to businesses in the industry.
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