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US (OH): Running a business has "huge hurdles" in Youngstown

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.

Read more at The Business Journal

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