Operators keep asking the same questions about capital, licensing, margin and regulation. This column answers one at a time, takes a position, and cites the episodes the answer came from so you can hear the operator say it themselves.
9 answers
Cannabinoid R&D now splits into two tracks: FDA botanical drug development requiring pharmaceutical-grade rigor, and biosynthesis or chemical synthesis of minor cannabinoids for consistency and cost. Both are real businesses, not hype, but both are slower and harder than the plant made them look.
280E stops a business trafficking in a Schedule I or II substance from deducting normal business expenses, which is every state licensed cannabis company. Jon Purow put the gain from ending it at up to 30% on profitability, and hemp derived THC sellers never paid it at all.
As of mid 2026, Organigram CEO James Yamanaka put Germany's medical cannabis market at about €2.5 billion, driven by roughly 800,000 patients, and expected it to reach around €4.8 billion within two years. He also said Canadian companies supply about 46% of it.
The biggest change Schedule III brings is tax. Moving off Schedule I or II ends 280E, which Jon Purow put at up to a 30% profitability boost. It does not deliver banking, interstate commerce for marijuana or a federal regulatory framework, and as of the December 2025 executive order it still needed rulemaking.
Three things stack up. The investor pool is a fraction of comparable sectors, most of the money that did come in was debt tied to physical assets, and years of inflated projections cost the industry credibility. Seth Yakatan sees access to US public equity markets as the unlock.
Ohio caps licenses (one cultivation, one processing, up to eight dispensaries per company) instead of letting the market flood, which avoids the race-to-the-bottom pricing that hit Michigan. It also let adult-use sales start under existing medical rules instead of waiting years for finished adult-use regulations.
Pick a payment processor for redundancy, not for compliance claims. A single processor and bank sponsor can get shut off overnight, so the operators who stay funded run multiple rails behind one terminal and treat card acceptance as a revenue tool, not just a convenience.
Cannabis payment processing isn't a product you buy once, it's a redundancy system you maintain, because Visa and Mastercard treat cannabis as federally illegal and can pull support overnight. Dispensaries that stack multiple processors and bank sponsors behind one terminal stay funded when a rail gets cut.
Mostly no. Vertical integration is a response to a market's conditions, not a strategy that wins on its own. It pays in young, supply constrained states and turns into a liability in mature ones, and the operators defending it hardest are often the ones a regulator forced into it.