Vili Fualaau says he still loves former-school-teacher-turned-wife Mary Kay Letourneau – but being married to a registered sex offender is simply bad for business, according to Radar Online.

Fualaau said he and Letourneau are still happily together and he merely filed for a legal separation from her May 9 because he believes it will make it easier for him to get a license to distribute “Cigaweed” marijuana cigarettes.

“It’s not necessarily what you think,” he told the website of the separation filing. “When you want to get licensed, they do background checks on both parties. If I decide to be a part of it, I have to be licensed, and I have to be vetted, and so does a spouse. She has a past. She has a history.”

Letourneau, now 55, served seven years in prison for having sex with Fualaau when he was her sixth-grade student in 1996. With the felony child-rape charge, Letourneau will be on the registered sex offender list for the rest of her life.

“All the rumors that you hear between us. It’s fine,” he said. “Of course [we are still in love]. A piece of paper doesn’t break someone’s feelings!”

Fualaau said he’s been working as a DJ in the Washington area — where he and Letourneau raise their two children together — but has been itching to start his own weed-selling business.