The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has allowed a share registration to proceed for a company whose business model includes cultivation and sale of marijuana, which are both illegal under federal law, though legal under some state laws.

This approval appears to be the first green light for a share registration by a company in this line of business and could set a precedent for marijuana dealers to access the equity markets, but the agency’s ambivalence about such a business model is clear from the way it handled the registration.