Legislation allowing banks to offer credit cards, checking accounts and other financial services to legal cannabis businesses passed the U.S. House Friday, the sixth time that the Democratic-controlled chamber approved such a measure.
The Secure and Fair Enforcement, or SAFE Banking Act was included in legislation providing federal assistance to help U.S. manufacturers better compete with China. That measure was approved largely along party lines, 222-210.
The Senate earlier passed a similar bill on a bipartisan basis, so both chambers will try to come up with a final version that can clear Congress.
“Cannabis-related businesses — big and small — and their employees are in desperate need of access to the banking system and access to capital in order to operate in an efficient, safe manner and compete in the growing global cannabis marketplace,” said the measure’s chief sponsor, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo.
Booker, who is leading efforts in the Senate to end the federal ban on cannabis, has opposed efforts to pass SAFE Banking without also including restorative justice provisions to help largely minority communities and individuals who were most injured by the War on Drugs.
Federally regulated banks have been caught in the middle between U.S. law, which outlaws cannabis, and the laws of dozens of states, including New Jersey, that now allow some use of cannabis. [Read more at NJ.com]
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