Walled Lake dispensary seeing influx of counterfeit cash
WALLED LAKE, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - A Walled Lake dispensary owner says he's losing hundreds of dollars per week to counterfeit money.
"There's an uptick in the past couple of months. We've always gotten them here and there, but the past two or three months, I'm seeing a huge uptick in fake money," says Greenhouse of Walled Lake owner Jerry Millen.
As cannabis is currently illegal at the federal level, Michigan-licensed cannabis dispensaries cannot accept credit cards for payment.
"Counterfeiting is actually considered by the U.S. government as an act of war," says former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino.
Convertino says counterfeit cash can be convincing and tedious to look through during a busy day. He says the biggest indicator is how the money feels.
"If it doesn't feel right, it's almost never right. And that should be the first thing that we notice is its cotton and linen, it's not paper," says Convertino.
As for solutions to combatting an issue like this, Millen says federal legalization is his answer.
"I don't understand how we can be federally illegal, pay all this money in taxes, we're great citizens, but we can only take cash, we can't take credit cards," says Millen. "We need federal legalization of cannabis so that we can have all this fake money stop coming through my store."
Under Michigan law, possession with the intent to pass off fake currency as real may result in a felony that is punishable by five years in prison or fines.