{"id":7091,"date":"2017-01-02T07:10:46","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T07:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com?p=2335674&amp;preview_id=2335674"},"modified":"2017-01-02T07:10:46","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T07:10:46","slug":"sen-elizabeth-warren-seeks-to-pull-pot-shops-out-of-banking-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/sen-elizabeth-warren-seeks-to-pull-pot-shops-out-of-banking-limbo\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Elizabeth Warren seeks to pull pot shops out of banking limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/sen-elizabeth-warren-seeks-to-pull-pot-shops-out-of-banking-limbo\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><p><strong>By Steve LeBlanc<\/strong>, <em>Associated Press<\/em><\/p>\n<p>BOSTON \u2014 As marijuana shops sprout in states that have legalized the drug, they face a critical stumbling block \u2014 lack of access to the kind of routine banking services other businesses take for granted.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, is leading an effort to make sure vendors working with legal marijuana businesses, from chemists who test marijuana for harmful substances to firms that provide security, don\u2019t have their banking services taken away.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s part of a wider effort by Warren and others to bring the burgeoning $7 billion marijuana industry in from a fiscal limbo she said forces many shops to rely solely on cash, making them tempting targets for criminals.<\/p>\n<p>After voters in Warren\u2019s home state approved a November ballot question to legalize the recreational use of pot, she joined nine other senators in sending a letter to a key federal regulator, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, calling on it to issue additional guidance to help banks provide services to marijuana shop vendors.<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-eight states have legalized marijuana for medicinal or recreational use.<\/p>\n<p>Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said there are benefits to letting marijuana-based businesses move away from a cash-only model.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\" \/>\n<p>\u201cYou make sure that people are really paying their taxes. You know that the money is not being diverted to some kind of criminal enterprise,\u201d Warren said recently. \u201cAnd it\u2019s just a plain old safety issue. You don\u2019t want people walking in with guns and masks and saying, \u2018Give me all your cash.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A spokesman for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said the agency is reviewing the letter.<\/p>\n<p>There has been some movement to accommodate the banking needs of marijuana businesses.<\/p>\n<p>Two years ago, the U.S. Department of the Treasury gave banks permission to do business with legal marijuana entities under some conditions. Since then, the number of banks and credit unions willing to handle pot money rose from 51 in 2014 to 301 in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Warren, however, said fewer than 3 percent of the nation\u2019s 11,954 federally regulated banks and credit unions are serving the cannabis industry.<\/p>\n<p>Taylor West, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, a trade organization for 1,100 marijuana businesses nationwide, said access to banking remains a top concern.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat the industry needs is a sustainable solution that services the entire industry instead of tinkering around the edges,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to be fully in favor of legalized marijuana to know that it helps no one to force these businesses outside the banking system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sam Kamin, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law who studies marijuana regulation, said there\u2019s only so much states can do on their own.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe stumbling block over and over again is the federal illegality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The federal government lumps marijuana into the same class of drugs as heroin, LSD and peyote. Democratic President Barack Obama\u2019s administration has essentially turned a blind eye to state laws legalizing the drug, and supporters of legalizing marijuana hope Republican President-elect Donald Trump will follow suit.<\/p>\n<p>Trump officials did not respond to a request for comment. During the presidential campaign, Trump said states should be allowed to legalize marijuana and has expressed support for medicinal use. But he also has sounded more skeptical about recreational use, and his pick for attorney general, Alabama U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, is a stern critic.<\/p>\n<p>Some people in the marijuana industry say the banking challenges are merely growing pains for an industry evolving from mom-and-pop outlets.<\/p>\n<p>Nicholas Vita, CEO of Columbia Care, one of the nation\u2019s largest providers of medical marijuana products, said it\u2019s up to marijuana businesses to make sure their financial house is in order.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not just as simple as asking the banks to open their doors,\u201d Vita said. \u201cThe industry also needs to develop a set of standards that are acceptable to the banks.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As marijuana shops sprout in states that have legalized the drug, they face a critical stumbling block \u2014 lack of access to the kind of routine banking services other businesses take for granted. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6913,6813,77,5577,5667,9,5019,1,3,61,1736],"tags":[6914,6818,2655,5580,5673,5022],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}