From our President and CEO
Te Time for SAFE Banking is Now
services, the topic of cannabis banking has, for lack of a better phrase, been stuck in the weeds for years.
Te SAFE Banking Act, which would enable banks to provide financial services to marijuana-related businesses, has passed the U.S. House of Representatives with bipartisan support five times in the past decade. Despite this, we are nowhere closer to providing banking services to these businesses than we were 10 years ago because the bill never moves to the Senate floor.
Te primary reason the bill has stagnated is that cannabis remains a Schedule 1 narcotic. Many members of Congress refuse to vote for a bill that legalizes servicing of a business that, itself, is
illegal at the federal level. Although our industry has communicated the danger of forcing these businesses to operate largely in cash, the risk never seems to rise high enough to drive federal action.
Recent events, however, may be turning the tide on the cannabis banking conversation. In May of this year, a Kansas sheriff’s deputy seized more than $165,000 from a security van moving funds from legal marijuana dispensaries in Missouri to a credit union in Colorado for deposit. Despite the fact that these sales took place in a state where medical marijuana is legal, the transport of those funds through a state in which medical marijuana is illegal supposedly gave the sheriff’s deputy, along
with support from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, cause for search and seizure.
Te case is now headed to federal court, and the ruling will undoubtedly affect the ways in which legal dispensaries choose to transport funds for secured deposit. However, a broader view of this situation should immediately make clear how unnecessarily difficult and dangerous we are making it for these legal businesses to operate without federally supporting banking services. Tere are literally vans of cash moving between states — open to seizure or to criminal activity — simply because banks cannot confidently offer insured deposit services to these businesses.
Max Cook, President and CEO Missouri Bankers Association
Te time to pass the SAFE Banking Act is now. Tere is no reason for these businesses, which are licensed to legally operate in their states, to be put at greater risk than any other legal business. Tere is no reason for the funds from these businesses to be leaving their communities rather than supporting local financial services. Every dollar that leaves these communities is a dollar those communities no longer see in local lending. Join us in reaching out to the Missouri delegation to let them know that the simplest solution to this problem is one that’s already shown it can move — let’s get SAFE Banking across the finish line.
THE MISSOURI BANKER 5
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