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In a pair of new interviews, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) is getting more specific about the path forward for marijuana reform this Congress, explicitly acknowledging plans to advance \u201cSAFE Banking Plus\u201d legislation that combines financial fixes for the cannabis industry with other, more justice-focused incremental policy changes\u2014which he predicts could pass sometime between November\u2019s midterm elections and January.<\/p>\n
Advocates and industry stakeholders have been hanging on the senator\u2019s words in the weeks since he filed a long-awaited federal legalization bill alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR).<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because, for the better part of the past year, Booker has drawn a clear line in the sand<\/a>, insisting that comprehensive legalization must be enacted first before modest reforms like the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act advance in his chamber.<\/p>\n Since filing the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act (CAOA)<\/a>, however, Booker has characterized himself as a \u201ccompromise guy,\u201d<\/a> ready and willing to work with his colleagues across the aisle to get something done on marijuana policy before the end of the session.<\/p>\n That something will likely be what\u2019s become known as \u201cSAFE Banking Plus\u201d that combines protections for financial institutions that work with state-legal cannabis businesses with other reforms such as expungements for people with past convictions and industry access to federal Small Business Administration (SBA) services. Schumer has been holding bipartisan and bicameral talks<\/a> about what such a marijuana omnibus bill might look like.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would have to be a SAFE Banking Plus bill,\u201d to get his support for legislation that falls short of an ambitious legalization bill like CAOA, Booker told Cheddar News on Wednesday. \u201cI know there\u2019s a lot of small businesses that are really suffering right now. They can\u2019t access the financial industry to get loans for it. They can\u2019t find a way to get out of using enormous sums of cash, which end up making them targets for criminal activity.\u201d<\/p>\n \ufeff<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI know the urgency for SAFE Banking for the little woman or little guy in terms of getting this done,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cBut I also know that if we get that done\u2014which is being pushed by large corporations and other large financial interests\u2014we will leave behind the millions of Americans who had themselves or their families been affected by these low-level drug charges.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether by intention or not, the year that it took the senators to file CAOA after releasing a draft version seems to have steered the conversation around congressional cannabis reform in a more bipartisan direction. The sponsors have publicly recognized that there\u2019s likely not enough support for their wide-ranging measure, but some of its provisions, informed by feedback from bipartisan offices, could be used a building blocks for SAFE Banking Plus.<\/p>\n \u2014 \u201cThere\u2019s got to be things [in the package], from opening up SBA loans to small businesses, because right now the industry has about one percent minority participation in terms of the ownership of retailers,\u201d he said, adding that the legislation should ensure businesses \u201chave a level playing field for accessing capital.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cExpungement of records, which is really important,\u201d is another reform being discussed, as well as \u201cother things that I think should not be that hard to get in some kind of compromise,\u201d Booker said.<\/p>\n What\u2019s raising hopes among advocates is that the Senate champions of the new legalization bill have put a strong emphasis on the increasingly bipartisan nature of their talks with other offices.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m actually gaining enthusiasm,\u201d Booker said in a separate interview<\/a> with PIX 11. \u201cIt is actually moving with more and more senators coming on to the major bill\u2014and now more Republicans are stepping up to help us perhaps land a compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Part of the shift, he said, may well have to do with the fact that senators across the political spectrum are seeing their states move to legalize cannabis, and it\u2019s forcing reluctant members to consider compromises, if only for their constituents\u2019 sake.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to marijuana, I think that there\u2019s a lot of senators who come from states where it\u2019s legalized that are now beginning to realize that they\u2019ve got to do something to help these businesses out,\u201d the senator told Cheddar. \u201cSo there\u2019s conversations going on. I\u2019m very encouraged by them. This is a long way from when I first got to the Senate, and Democrats wouldn\u2019t talk to me about this issue. So I\u2019m very hopeful that we can get something done before the end of this Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n He said specifically that the \u201cmidterm elections [in November] through January are the windows we have a chance to get something done.\u201d It\u2019s not clear why Democratic leadership would delay action on a broadly popular issue until a lame duck session after an election which could see one or both chambers flip to GOP control, but there\u2019s only so much time left to introduce and advance an incremental marijuana reform package before the midterms.<\/p>\n As he frequently points out, Booker also reiterated that it makes no sense to continue criminalizing people over cannabis when the sitting vice president and former presidents have spoken \u201copenly about their drug use that did not have legal consequences for their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy should it be so impactful\u2014permanently impactful\u2014to young people in my community?\u201d he said. \u201cI want to make sure that, as everybody\u2019s rushing to legalize, don\u2019t forget about the people who are suffering from\u2014and their families who\u2019ve really suffered from\u2014marijuana prohibition.\u201d<\/p>\n Booker initially signaled he was coming around to marijuana banking reform (contingent on equity provisions) at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing<\/a> last month that he convened as chairman.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the bicameral sponsors of the SAFE Banking Act, Reps. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), laid out\u00a0next steps for the cannabis banking reform<\/a> last month at a briefing organized by the U.S. Cannabis Council (USCC).<\/p>\n Also at that briefing, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) said that he recently spoke with Booker about the pathway for marijuana reform this session, and they had a \u201cgreat conversation\u201d about finding areas of compromise.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the senator is fully aware of the consequences of this failed policy of prohibition in terms of what it does with the SAFE Banking Act and the threat that is made to the very communities he wants to support,\u201d the congressman said in response to a question from Marijuana Moment. \u201cI think he\u2019s trying to be able to thread the needle.\u201d<\/p>\n Perlmutter also said in a recent interview that he feels the introduction of CAOA alone in the Senate means that\u00a0lawmakers have overcome a legislative \u201churdle\u201d<\/a>\u00a0that\u2019s kept SAFE Banking from advancing in the chamber.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the third-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Assistant Majority Leader Patty Murray (D-WA)\u00a0signed on to CAOA following its introduction<\/a>, but in a statement, she also stressed that lawmakers must enact the bipartisan banking bill in the interim.<\/p>\n Key Senate Committee Chairman Scaled Back Marijuana Amendment On Security Clearance Denials To Secure Passing Vote<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Booker Says There\u2019s Republican Support For \u2018SAFE Banking Plus\u2019 Marijuana Compromise<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In a pair of new interviews, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) is getting more specific about the path forward for marijuana reform this Congress, explicitly acknowledging plans to advance \u201cSAFE Banking Plus\u201d legislation that combines financial fixes for the cannabis industry with other, more justice-focused incremental policy changes\u2014which he predicts couldContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":56345,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56346,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56344\/revisions\/56346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Booker Says There\u2019s Republican Support For \u2018SAFE Banking Plus\u2019 Marijuana Compromise<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"