SAFE Banking for Cannabis Businesses Do-Over

A bi-partisan group of congress members plans to reintroduced the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act to the House floor, legislation that would protect financial institutions from sanctions for working with marijuana companies.

Representatives Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), Steve Stivers (R-OH), Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), and Warren Davidson (R-OH) joined together supporting the bill, aiming to better align federal and state laws.

“Thousands of employees and businesses across this country have been forced to deal in piles of cash for far too long,” said Rep. Perlmutter. “The SAFE Banking Act is an important first step to treating cannabis businesses like legal, legitimate businesses and beginning to reform our federal cannabis laws.”

Though legal in a growing number of states and available for recreational use for over a third of Americans, weed is still a class one drug under federal law. Based on that label, federal regulations have kept firms from providing capital, banking, and other financial products to weed companies: it’s hard to scale a business when it’s cash-only.

Representatives hope to give safe harbor to firms to transact with the weed industry if they follow state regulations. The bill first went through the house in September 2019 and passing with flying colors in a 321-103 vote. Then the pandemic hit and muddled up the Senate vote, but after pro cannabis language landed in two stimulus bills, supporters are even more confident this time around.

“At a time when small businesses need all the support they can get, and after cannabis businesses specifically have been providing essential services and generating significant tax revenues for states and the federal government with little to no financial relief, it is more imperative than ever to get the SAFE Banking Act passed into law,” Aaron Smith, the CEO of the National Cannabis Industry Association said. “These businesses are contributing billions of dollars to the national economy every year and need to be treated like any other legal, regulated industry.”

Kevin Travers was a Reporter at deBanked.