285 — The Milestone

Trulieve, a cannabis company, is now trading on the New York Stock Exchange. This is being called a milestone. The milestone is that you can now purchase shares in a company whose primary product is illegal to possess under federal law, from a federal institution, using a federally regulated account.

This does not represent any change in federal law. Cannabis remains a Schedule I controlled substance. The NYSE remains regulated by the SEC. The listing itself required SEC approval. The SEC is a federal agency. All of these facts coexist.

The specific achievement here is that the money is now moving through the correct channels. The product is still moving through the incorrect channels, by federal definition. Trulieve's stock is on the New York Stock Exchange. Trulieve's cannabis is on something else.

Kim Rivers, Trulieve's chief executive, called this a milestone for the industry. She is correct. The company's shares are worth something. The specific thing they are worth depends on whether the federal government continues to not enforce the law against an industry it is now regulating the investment instruments of. These are different things. The government has not provided a timeline for resolving the difference.

The New York Stock Exchange rang its opening bell. It always rings its opening bell. The bell does not know what it is opening.