NH's nonprofit pot sellers skirt rules to raise money

In theory, and in compliance with state law, Hampshire's four medical marijuana dispensaries are owned and run by nonprofit organizations.
In practice, the owners have found ways to legally funnel money out of the operations. The methods they use are open industry secrets and the situation has played out in nearly every state that required dispensaries to be run by nonprofits.As a result, most of those states have changed their laws to reflect the reality of the industry and ease the restrictions on dispensaries that are trying to raise capital."A not-for-profit doesn't have shares or membership in an LLC that they can sell on an open market . but these cannabis operations are very capital intensive, especially if they're going to grow their own marijuana," said Scott Moskol, co-chair of the cannabis business advisory division of the Boston law firm Burns & Levinson. "So how is a not-for-profit to raise millions of dollars? In a traditional not-for-profit you might have memberships, membership dues, fundraisers or a capital campaign."That's not what happens in the marijuana industry. Instead, there are several common workarounds. One way is for the officers of the nonprofit, or their friends and family, to lend the organization money at extremely high interest rates, allowing them to receive returns equivalent to being an investor in a business.