The legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington is providing some lessons for what we might expect in other jurisdictions that are liberalizing their marijuana possession laws. The Reason.tv video below discusses one problem that the industry has to deal with - the amount of cash transactions involved and trying to get banks to accept all that cash without triggering laundering laws or or the ire of the US federal government who is not fully on board with these liberalized state laws.

Many private investors are interested in getting a piece of the legal marijuana action and when you see the mounds of cash in this video you can see why. Of course there are many legal and financial risks that these companies face but dealing with these risks is also an opportunity for service providers that are popping up around the legal marijuana industry. One of these service providers, Blue Line Protection Group, looks like it has an equally bright future as the Brinks of the legal marijuana industry - handling delivery of cash and marijuana in a safe, secure, and compliant manner.

Another group of emerging service providers are sites dedicated to tracking the marijuana industry as a financial market on par with any other financial market. You can, for example, go to the MarijuanaIndex.com to get up to date news on Cannibis-related stocks, news, and investing.

As this young legal marijuana industry starts to become more established we can expect to see a host of service providers coming in to target the needs of the industry. When considering investing in legal marijuana it is easy to think that all of the money is in the production and distribution of marijuana, but if the Oil & Gas industry is any guide, there is alot of money to be made in the provision of services to the legal marijuana industry. They have to spend all that cash on something.

I'll conclude this blog with the observation that purchasing legal marijuana appears to mostly done on a cash transaction basis as those wanting to purchase marijuana product do not want to be tracked. Will this industry remain as a mostly cash-based industry or is the industry in need of a better transaction system - one that ensures privacy while also giving the user the convenience of a credit card.

There are many pain points in a new industry and a corresponding number of opportunities for entrepreneurs to start up new businesses to address those pain points.