{"id":44215,"date":"2021-10-15T18:44:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-16T00:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-explores-public-financing-for-cannabis-businesses\/"},"modified":"2021-10-16T00:44:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-16T00:44:00","slug":"new-mexico-explores-public-financing-for-cannabis-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-explores-public-financing-for-cannabis-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico explores public financing for cannabis businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"New
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announces April 12 her decision to sign a law that legalizes recreational marijuana outside the state Capitol building in Santa Fe, N.M. Small-scale marijuana businesses in New Mexico could have access to publicly financed loans up to $250,000 in an effort to promote social and economic fairness. (Morgan Lee\/Associated Press file)<\/span>Morgan Lee<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SANTA FE \u2013 Small-scale marijuana businesses in New Mexico would receive access to publicly financed loans of up to $250,000 in an effort to promote social and economic fairness, under a proposal unveiled Thursday.<\/p>\n

The New Mexico Finance Authority suggested a $5 million line of credit to licensed cannabis microbusinesses, seeking preliminary approval from a panel of state legislators. The panel voted 6-5 against immediate endorsement, stalling the effort amid a variety of concerns about rules for lending to the fledgling recreational marijuana industry.<\/p>\n

Under the proposal lending rules, loans would be made available to qualified cannabis \u201cmicrobusinesses” that are licensed to cultivate and sell marijuana from up to 200 plants at a single location, operating much like a craft winery or brewery. That business niche was authorized in sweeping legislation to regulate and tax recreational marijuana sales, signed by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in April.<\/p>\n

The law requires that the state promote business opportunities for communities that were penalized disproportionately by past criminal enforcement of marijuana laws, without saying exactly how. The social-justice provisions also mandate some form of help for farmers from economically disadvantaged communities and residents of rural areas where the marijuana industry may take hold.<\/p>\n

New Mexico Finance Authority CEO Marquita Russel, an architect of preliminary rules for the loan program, said traditional business loans are still scarce for small-scale cannabis entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have very few options. If you are a startup cannabis microbusiness, you can\u2019t go to a bank, you can\u2019t go to the Small Business Administration,\u201d she told legislators. \u201cThere is not a space for a small business to get a loan of this sort.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed loan program would be underwritten by the state\u2019s Economic Development Revolving Loan Fund, which helps stimulate the economy in remote regions of the state. Russel says the program would draw on idle loan reserves, including unspent money set aside for critical services during the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

State cannabis and finance regulators acknowledged that challenges likely lie ahead in vetting small loan applications from unproven business in a startup industry emerging partly from the black market.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe anticipate that most of them will not have current financial statements,\u201d Russel said.<\/p>\n

Experienced medical marijuana companies would not qualify under proposed lending rules aimed at helping small, newly licensed growers.<\/p>\n

Republican state Sen. Stuart Ingle of Portales warned that it may be difficult to fully recover loans from marijuana farmers and highlighted a lack of farming and ranching experience among board members at the New Mexico Finance Authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still so many questions in here, where questions can\u2019t be answered,\u201d he said. \u201cWe may need to slow things down.\u201d<\/p>\n

State-sanctioned recreational cannabis sales are scheduled to start no later than April 1. State cannabis regulators have received at least 22 license applications to from cannabis microbusiness, according to public records.<\/p>\n

For the loan program to move forward, approval is needed from a legislative oversight committee and the New Mexico Finance Authority board that includes several state cabinet secretaries and representatives of municipal and county governments.<\/p>\n

Loan applications would require collateral guarantees of repayment such as land or equipment, with loan periods of up to five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be fully secured. These are our dollars, they need to be repaid,\u201d Russel said. \u201cThese aren’t (loans) for people who just kind of decided this might be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announces April 12 her decision to sign a law that legalizes recreational marijuana outside the state Capitol building in Santa Fe, N.M. Small-scale marijuana businesses in New Mexico could have access to publicly financed loans up to $250,000 in an effort to promote social and economic fairness. (Morgan Lee\/Associated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-44215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44215"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=44215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}