Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Nicole “Nikki” Fried submitted a statement to the United States House Committee on Small Business during a hearing on Wednesday titled, “Unlocked Potential? Small Businesses in the Cannabis Industry.”
The statement addresses the impact that the growing cannabis industry can have on small businesses in the United States.
“For more than 70 years, American entrepreneurs, farmers, and businesses have been denied the boundless economic opportunities presented by cannabis,” says Fried. “With the reclassification of hemp as an agricultural commodity per the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, many tens of billions in economic potential have now been unlocked for businesses of all sizes.”
Listing a few of the thousands of known uses for cannabis, Fried says that cannabis represents a green industrial revolution that has the potential to create thousands of cultivation, processing, manufacturing and retail jobs within the marijuana industry.
But Fried notes that conflicting guidance from the federal government has created unnecessary hurdles and higher risks for licensed cannabis businesses, especially among rural communities, veterans, people of color, and small businesses.
Commissioner Fried points out that a lack of access to traditional banking services ties state-licensed cannabis businesses to a cash-based system which she says is inefficient and a public safety concern.
Voicing her support for the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, Fried says that a lack of banking access puts cannabis companies at a crippling disadvantage and that there will be continued confusion and misinformation unless Congress takes action.
Fried says that the U.S. cannabis industry has the potential to help communities across the country and that the time has come for Congress and the federal government to empower small businesses and embrace the economic revolution of cannabis after decades of opportunities lost to cannabis prohibition.
