Like every other business, the owners of medical marijuana dispensaries face many challenges getting their businesses off the ground. Unlike more traditional establishments, these entrepreneurs often cope with greater difficulties getting needed business services and handling negative public opinion.

In the greatest case of NIMBY - not in my backyard - purveyors of medical marijuana dispensaries find it difficult to obtain leases in more affluent areas and find themselves relegated to less desirable locations, increasing their likelihood of facing break-ins and robberies. People want medical marijuana to be available to card carrying patients, but they don't want to have the stores inside their neighborhoods.

Break-Ins Can Occur Anywhere

In two recent incidents the motivation remained exactly the same - obtaining marijuana. A dispensary in Colorado Springs has had its dumpster stolen several times in recent days. Thieves used bolt cutters to open the trash receptacle hoping to find marijuana debris. Trash has been left on neighboring trails and in parks.

In Langley, BC a man who grew medical marijuana legally at his home opened his door to simply help two men claiming to have car trouble. They pushed him into his home, brandished a knife and gun, tied him up and blindfolded him, and then proceeded to rob the house and decrease his marijuana plants. They left, stealing both his vehicles.

Legitimate Business Services Would Help Entrepreneurs

While there isn't much that banks or merchant account providers could do for domestic growers, for dispensaries, obtaining exactly the same scale of business services available to other programs would reduce the attraction of such storefronts to burglars and petty thieves. Apart from the attraction of marijuana on the premises, it's often the accessibility to so much untraceable cash that makes MMJ dispensaries so appealing.

Owners are finding that when they are able to process transactions by credit card, clients prefer to pay for that way. With little cash available, vulnerability of an area decreases dramatically.

The difficulties behind getting such services lay in the fact that although some state governments have legalized the sale of medical marijuana to card carrying individuals, the government hasn't accepted marijuana as a state issue. On the federal level pot remains illegal, and banks are dependent upon the FDIC to insure their account holders, and are expected to follow numerous federal regulations.

What Does the Future Hold?

There is really no way to anticipate how a fight to totally legalize marijuana will go. Some cities which already approved the sale of MMJ want to backtrack; others are striving to enhance service and availability goodtrip mushrooms. The very best exemplory case of such a situation historically is the re-legalization of alcohol after prohibition. Crimes surrounding the sale decreased dramatically.

Thinking about the potential tax base, it isn't hard to see why both the federal and state governments would be interested in completely legalizing MMJ. For business owners, that could signal the availability of all needed business services, a very welcome change.