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Two in three Americans want to see Congress pass a bill letting state-legal marijuana businesses access traditional banking services like checking accounts and loans, according to a new poll from the American Bankers Association (ABA).<\/p>\n
The survey that was released on Thursday included two cannabis banking questions: the first generally polled respondents on whether they feel marijuana businesses should be able to access basic financial services and the second asked if Congress should do something about it.<\/p>\n
Support was consistent for both, with 66 percent of respondents saying they favor the proposals, including 37 percent who said they \u201cstrongly\u201d support them. Only 16 percent of Americans said they oppose having lawmakers enact marijuana banking reform.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nVia ABA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cAmericans firmly believe that now is the time to resolve the ongoing conflict between state and federal law to allow banks to serve legal cannabis and cannabis-related businesses,\u201d ABA President and CEO Rob Nichols said<\/a> in a press release. \u201cWe urge Congress to pass the SAFE Banking Act this year to enhance public safety in the 38 states where cannabis is legal in some form.\u201d<\/p>\n That bipartisan legislation has passed the House in some form seven times now, but it\u2019s continued to stall in the Senate under both Republican and Democratic control. However, the reform is expected to be included in a forthcoming package of marijuana reforms that Senate leadership is finalizing.<\/p>\n Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) told Marijuana Moment in a phone interview on Tuesday that he believes leadership understands that \u201cthe inability to access safe banking actually poses a tremendous problem for minority entrepreneurs\u201d in the industry, and that the status quo is \u201cdeadly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are hundreds and hundreds of robberies\u2014dozens of instances of violence\u2014and it falls heavily on people who don\u2019t have the massive resources to be able to ride this out and to pay the premium that is attached to being forced to be all cash. I think they\u2019re making real progress,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m confident that this is going to move forward in the lame duck session. And I think the prospects for passage are very high.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) similarly said that he thinks Congress has a \u201cgood shot\u201d of passing cannabis banking reform<\/a> during the lame duck as part of the yet-to-be-filed legislation that\u2019s being described as \u201cSAFE Plus.\u201d He was previously adamant about not touching the banking issue until comprehensive legalization is enacted, but he\u2019s softened his tone in recent months and expressed interest in a compromise.<\/p>\n ABA\u2019s new poll\u2014which was conducted by Morning Consult and involved interviews with 2,211 adults from September 16-17, with a +\/-2 percentage point margin of error\u2014contains findings that are similar to past surveys that it\u2019s commissioned.<\/p>\n In March, for example, ABA found that 65 percent of Americans think marijuana businesses should have access to financial services and 68 percent said Congress should pass reform<\/a> to achieve that.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the governor of Colorado and other top state officials like Treasurer Dave Young (D) sent a letter to congressional leaders this month<\/a> reiterating their interest in having lawmakers pass the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act from Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO).<\/p>\n Members of the National Association of State Treasurers (NAST), including Young, also recently reaffirmed the organization\u2019s support for a resolution voicing support for the SAFE Banking Act<\/a>. Young told Marijuana Moment that the status quo has created a \u201c21st century Wild West in which armed hold ups and storefront heists are becoming an all-too-common risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is spearheading the SAFE Plus push, separately spoke about the banking issue at a White House event<\/a> last month, emphasizing that he was working on the problem, according to the House sponsor.<\/p>\n The conversation between Schumer and Perlmutter happened at an event on inflation reduction and happened to coincide with the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) lobby days, with over 100 marijuana business leaders on Capitol Hill to\u00a0push for the passage of the SAFE Banking Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n In addition to banking, the expectation is that the in-the-works marijuana omnibus legislation that Schumer and bipartisan and bicameral officers are working on will include proposals on cannabis research, veterans medical marijuana access and more.<\/p>\n Perlmutter said at an NCIA-organized press conference that he\u2019s increasingly tempted to \u201cgo to the nuclear option\u201d in the House Rules Committee of \u201cholding up\u201d separate legislation like the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in order to get the marijuana banking measure enacted.<\/p>\n The congressman and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the Senate sponsor of the SAFE Banking Act, also outlined\u00a0next steps for the cannabis banking reform<\/a>\u00a0at a briefing organized by the U.S. Cannabis Council (USCC) in July.<\/p>\n Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC) released a paper in August that outlined what they view as shortcomings of the standalone SAFE Banking Act and recommended\u00a0several amendments to bolster its equity impact<\/a>.<\/p>\n Booker said at an event organized by CRCC that\u00a0the standalone legislation \u201crequires changes\u201d<\/a>\u00a0if it\u2019s going to advance before cannabis is federally legalized.<\/p>\n The senator initially signaled that he was coming around to marijuana banking reform (contingent on equity provisions) at a\u00a0Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing<\/a>\u00a0in July that he convened as chairman.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Perlmutter also said in a recent interview that he feels the introduction of the Senate legalization bill alone means that\u00a0lawmakers have overcome a legislative \u201churdle\u201d<\/a>\u00a0that\u2019s kept SAFE Banking from advancing in the chamber.<\/p>\n \u2014 Another recent poll found that Republican voters are on board with a number of marijuana reform proposals<\/a>\u2014from medical cannabis legalization to expungements for prior marijuana convictions to letting states set their own policies without federal interference.<\/p>\n According to a survey from Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) that was released in September<\/a>, a majority of American voters (65 percent) support allowing banks to work with state-legal marijuana businesses\u2014and most people believe it will both improve public safety and promote social equity.<\/p>\n Separately, the non-partisan National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)\u00a0recently voted to adopt a revised policy directive<\/a>\u00a0that expresses support for federal marijuana descheduling and cannabis banking reform amid the state-level legalization movement.<\/p>\n Missouri Police Object To New Ad For Marijuana Legalization Ballot Initiative That Shows Officers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Two In Three Americans Want Congress To Pass Marijuana Banking Reform, American Bankers Association Poll Finds<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Two in three Americans want to see Congress pass a bill letting state-legal marijuana businesses access traditional banking services like checking accounts and loans, according to a new poll from the American Bankers Association (ABA). The survey that was released on Thursday included two cannabis banking questions: the first generallyContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":57635,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57634"}],"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=57634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57636,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57634\/revisions\/57636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Two In Three Americans Want Congress To Pass Marijuana Banking Reform, American Bankers Association Poll Finds<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"