Business
New Poll Shows Overwhelming Support for Cannabis Banking Legislation
A poll commissioned by a national banking industry group has found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. voters support allowing financial institutions to provide banking services to legal cannabis businesses.
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. voters support legislation to allow the banking industry to provide financial services to legal cannabis businesses, according to the results of a recent poll. The survey commissioned by the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) also found that a strong majority believe that allowing cannabis companies to access financial services would reduce the risk of robbery and other crimes at marijuana businesses.
The survey, which was conducted by the polling firm Morning Consult on behalf of the ICBA, found that 65% of U.S. voters support allowing cannabis businesses to access banking services in states that have legalized marijuana. The ICBA said the results of the poll indicate broad bipartisan support for the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, a federal bill that would allow such access to financial services for cannabis companies. The legislation has been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives seven times but has failed to gain the approval of the Senate.
“U.S. voters have made clear that current law inhibiting access to the banking system for cannabis-related businesses has a negative impact on local communities,” ICBA president and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said in a statement from the industry group. “With a supermajority of U.S. voters voicing support for allowing cannabis-related businesses access to the banking system, the Senate should act now on bipartisan cannabis banking legislation that the House has passed seven times.”
The SAFE Banking Act would permit banks and other financial institutions to provide traditional business banking services to the legal cannabis industry. Under current regulations, providing such banking services including loans and payroll, checking and deposit accounts is tightly regulated by the federal government, resulting in few financial institutions agreeing to work with marijuana businesses. Critics note that the current policy forces cannabis companies to operate primarily in cash, leaving businesses vulnerable to robbery and other crime.
The SAFE Banking Act was first introduced in Congress in 2013 by Democratic Representative Ed Perlmutter of Colorado. Since then, the House of Representatives has passed the bill seven times as either a standalone bill or attached to other legislation, most recently as an add-on to a China competition bill that was later dropped from the legislation. Each time the cannabis banking bill or its provisions have been approved by the House, however, the legislation has failed to gain the approval of the Senate.
Voters Believe Cannabis Banking Bill Will Reduce Crime Risk
The ICBA poll also found that 71% of voters believe that allowing legal marijuana companies to access the banking system would help reduce the risk of robbery and assault at cannabis-related businesses, which the industry group said is an indication of the importance of cannabis banking access to public safety. A majority (55%) said that with some cannabis-related businesses owned and led by people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community, providing financial services to the weed companies could help foster equity in the cannabis industry.
Sahar Ayinehsazian, a partner in the cannabis law firm Vicente Sederberg’s Los Angeles office and the co-chair of the practice’s Banking and Financial Services Access Group, agreed that public support for cannabis banking legislation suggests the issue is an important public safety issue for the electorate.
“It’s encouraging to see that 71% of voters support giving banking access to cannabis businesses – this is not only a business issue, but also a serious public safety matter. We are approaching a decade since the passage of Amendment 64, which ushered in the current model of the national cannabis industry,” Ayinehsazian wrote in an email to High Times. “During this decade, cannabis businesses have proven themselves to be beacons of compliance and safe and material cornerstones of their communities and economies.”
“Continuing to provide hurdles to banking access is, therefore, a harm to the community at large,” she added. “Such broad bipartisan public support is reflective of the positive impacts the cannabis industry has had nationally and should motivate the Senate to get cannabis banking done.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/new-poll-shows-overwhelming-support-for-cannabis-banking-legislation/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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