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• Cannabis-industry execs and workers say they're having banking issues and being denied mortgages.
• Over 428,000 people work in the industry that's caught in conflicts between state and federal laws.
• Lawmakers are aware of the issue but passing legislation is an uphill battle.

When Sophia Patten and her husband were looking for a home in the red-hot Los Angeles housing market, they knew they would have to act fast.

Patten had been pre-approved for a mortgage in December, so the couple expected no hiccups once they found a house. But Patten recently took on a new job at Workweek — which, like many other media companies, writes about cannabis.

When the time came to buy a new home, that proved to be an unexpected obstacle. It nearly prevented them from buying the house they wanted, and they wound up paying a much higher interest rate on their mortgage than they initially agreed to. Patten's broker and bank each blamed the other. But the bottom line was that the financial institutions were wary of working with Patten because her job was tied, however indirectly, to cannabis.

Steven Kemmerling — the CEO of CRB Monitor, a corporate-intelligence firm that helps financial institutions navigate the cannabis industry — told Insider he sees problems like this frequently and doesn't see a fix coming soon.

Banks are wary of taking risks

"Getting loans and bank accounts is still a...

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