Looking back on the growing public support for changing the US drug laws, a bipartisan group of senators this past Thursday introduced the chamber’ first bill that would legalize banking for revenue that is generated from recreational marijuana companies.
Introduced by the Senate delegations from Oregon and Colorado, two of the first states to legalize recreational cannabis, the bill would stop the federal government from penalizing financial institutions that work with cannabis-related businesses.
However four states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis, the drug us still illegal under a federal standpoint. That makes it difficult for businesses that are up and running in those legalized states to access financial services through the banking industry. Rather, those companies have to run all cash business that the senators state welcome crime.
The whole legal foundation that legal marijuana presently faces is “insane,” stated GOP Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado in an interview.
“If you’re an employee or a store owner you can’t put money in the bank, but if you’re a municipality collecting tax you can collect the tax, you can put it in the bank and you can spend it. This is insane,” Gardner said. “It solves a public safety issue, it clarifies a regulatory nightmare and it clears up a pretty blatant hypocrisy.”
Yes, Congress has been very reluctant to address the nettlesome problem of cannabis law. Another landmark bill for the Senate from Rand Paul Cory Booker and Kristen Gillibrand that would legalize medical cannabis in states that have given a green light has run into opposition from the Senate’s old guard.
However, the upbeat Gardener noted that Sen. Orrin Hatch currently is behind a bipartisan bill that would exclude cannabidiol, which has more medical purposes, from the definition of cannabis in federal law. He stated Congress will get with eventually “Now, does it have a chance? I think there’s a lot of work that has to be done to give it that chance, but I also think that in 10 years most every other state in the country is going to be facing this question,” Gardner said. “People are coming on board and people are starting to realize we have a policy that’s kind of out of step.”
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