After lawmakers in the US Senate last week dropped a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act that would have allowed the banking industry to do business with licensed marijuana retailers, US Navy veteran Seth Smith felt the weight of the decision, literally.

As the chief compliance officer for a veteran-owned cannabis production and distribution business in California, Smith or one of his business partners at the Santa Cruz Veterans Alliance has to make a weekly trip to SCVA’s bank to get roughly 75 pounds of change to support the mostly cash transactions the organization processes at its licensed marijuana dispensary in Santa Cruz County.

“Cash is such a hassle,” Smith told Coffee or Die Magazine. “We have a bank, but we’re only authorized to send and receive checks and electronic wire payments, get change, and make deposits, which we have to use an armored car service for. And the bank we work with demands even more oversight of our operations than the local jurisdictions and the state.”

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