Senate Banking Committee Could Pave the Way to a Bankable Marijuana Industry

NEW YORK, January 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

NetworkNewsWire.com News Coverage: Last month, a letter signed by 10 U.S. senators arrived on the desk of Jamal El-Hindi, the acting director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN), requesting guidance on how banking services might be offered to "indirect businesses" - such as SinglePoint, Inc. (OTC: SING), Medical Marijuana, Inc. (OTC: MJNA) and Cannabis Science, Inc. (OTC: CBIS) - that serve the state-sanctioned marijuana industry. The implications of such guidance also carry considerable potential for banking players ranging from small financial institutions to bellwether banks like Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and Citigroup (NYSE: C).


The letter came at the prompting of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, a member of the Senate Banking Committee that oversees federal monetary policy, banking regulation and issues affecting the U.S. currency. It's a widely applauded push, and SinglePoint, Inc. for one, is banking on this initiative to clear the way for payment processing providers, such as its SingleSeed Payments subsidiary, to offer an array of payment and transaction services to marijuana shops and dispensaries.

According to a recent report in the Houston Chronicle (http://nnw.fm/qq6NB), this action is part of a wider effort by many policymakers to regularize the patchwork legal nature of the $7 billion marijuana industry, marked by a lack of banking options that forces marijuana businesses "to rely solely on cash, making them tempting targets for criminals."

Although 28 states and the District of Columbia have now legalized either adult recreational or medical use of marijuana, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) still classifies it as a Schedule I substance "with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." Yet, there is growing evidence in the medical profession and the general population that marijuana has beneficent therapeutic properties.

Companies like Cannabis Science, Inc. (OTC: CBIS) have set out to develop novel cannabinoid-based therapies for unmet medical needs, while others like Medical Marijuana, Inc. (OTC: MJNA) - the first publicly traded cannabis company - focuses on a variety of cannabinoid-based applications for consumer and medical markets.

In a collection of 60 peer-reviewed studies on medical marijuana (http://nnw.fm/75PYw) examining the employment of marijuana in the treatment of a long list of ailments - including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cancer and HIV/AIDS - 41 (68.3%) demonstrated positive results. Another 14 (23.3%) were inconclusive, and five (8.3%) of the trials reported negative outcomes.

Senator Warren has argued that loosening the restrictions that force marijuana business to transact in cash payments has a number of advantages.

"You make sure that people are really paying their taxes. You know that the money is not being diverted to some kind of criminal enterprise. And it's just a plain old safety issue. You don't want people walking in with guns and masks and saying, 'Give me all your cash.'"

There is some hope that the barriers preventing payment services providers like SingleSeed from doing business with marijuana establishments will be removed. FINCEN previously lent a sympathetic ear to similar pleas. In February 2014, the bureau offered guidance on how financial institutions could provide services to marijuana-related businesses consistent with their Bank Secrecy Act obligations.

That earlier guidance appears to have been tailored to businesses that dealt directly in marijuana like pot shops and marijuana dispensaries. It did not address the plight of the indirect businesses that service the marijuana industry, leaving it up to individual financial institutions to determine how to classify and treat indirect businesses.

Tossing the buck to financial institutions has had paltry success: "the number of banks and credit unions willing to handle pot money rose from 51 in 2014 to 301 in 2016," a figure that appears encouraging until placed in a wider context. There are 11,954 federally regulated banks and credit unions. In general, it's still an area dominated by small state-chartered banks and credit unions. Supporters of a bankable marijuana industry, however, see an inevitable day when large banks like Bank of America and Citigroup will offer full banking services to the cannabis industry.

When that day comes, financial technology (fintech) companies will have the chance to capitalize on a monstrous opportunity. SinglePoint's SingleSeed Payments subsidiary, for example, is already primed to offer ATM, Pay-by-Text[TM] and text message marketing to the cannabis industry. As it stands, progressive fintechs are in a similar quandary to their federally regulated counterparts and look forward to further guidance from FINCEN.

For more information, visit Singlepoint, Inc. (SING)

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Senate Banking Committee Could Pave the Way to a Bankable Marijuana Industry

Cannabis World Congress & Business Exposition

Congress quietly ends federal government’s ban on medical marijuana

Under a provision in the spending bill passed by Congress over the weekend, states where medical marijuana is legal would no longer need to worry about federal drug agents raiding retail operations. Agents would be prohibited from doing so. (Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

Tucked deep inside the 1,603-page federal spending measure is a provision that effectively ends the federal government’s prohibition on medical marijuana and signals a major shift in drug policy.

The bill’s passage over the weekend marks the first time Congress has approved nationally significant legislation backed by legalization advocates. It brings almost to a close two decades of tension between the states and Washington over medical use of marijuana.

Under the provision, states where medical pot is legal would no longer need to worry about federal drug agents raiding retail operations. Agents would be prohibited from doing so.

The Obama administration has largely followed that rule since last year as a matter of policy. But the measure approved as part of the spending bill, which President Obama plans to sign this week, will codify it as a matter of law.

Bloomberg’s Olivia Sterns reports on the New York Times’ advocacy of the legalization of marijuana.

Pot advocates had lobbied Congress to embrace the administration’s policy, which they warned was vulnerable to revision under a less tolerant future administration.More important, from the standpoint of activists, Congress’ action marked the emergence of a new alliance in marijuana politics: Republicans are taking a prominent role in backing states’ right to allow use of a drug the federal government still officially classifies as more dangerous than cocaine.

“This is a victory for so many,” said the measure’s coauthor, Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa. The measure’s approval, he said, represents “the first time in decades that the federal government has curtailed its oppressive prohibition of marijuana.

The war on medical marijuana is over. Now the fight moves on to legalization of all marijuana.– Bill Piper, a lobbyist with the Drug Policy Alliance

By now, 32 states and the District of Columbia have legalized pot or its ingredients to treat ailments, a movement that began in the 1990s. Even back then, some states had been approving broader decriminalization measures for two decades.

The medical marijuana movement has picked up considerable momentum in recent years. The Drug Enforcement Administration, however, continues to place marijuana in the most dangerous category of narcotics, with no accepted medical use.

Congress for years had resisted calls to allow states to chart their own path on pot. The marijuana measure, which forbids the federal government from using any of its resources to impede state medical marijuana laws, was previously rejected half a dozen times. When Washington, D.C., voters approved medical marijuana in 1998, Congress used its authority over the city’s affairs to block the law from taking effect for 11 years.

Even as Congress has shifted ground on medical marijuana, lawmakers remain uneasy about full legalization. A separate amendment to the spending package, tacked on at the behest of anti-marijuana crusader Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), will jeopardize the legalization of recreational pot in Washington, D.C., which voters approved last month.

Marijuana proponents nonetheless said they felt more confident than ever that Congress was drifting toward their point of view.

“The war on medical marijuana is over,” said Bill Piper, a lobbyist with the Drug Policy Alliance, who called the move historic.

“Now the fight moves on to legalization of all marijuana,” he said. “This is the strongest signal we have received from Congress [that] the politics have really shifted. … Congress has been slow to catch up with the states and American people, but it is catching up.”

The measure, which Rohrabacher championed with Rep. Sam Farr, a Democrat from Carmel, had the support of large numbers of Democrats for years. Enough Republicans joined them this year to put it over the top. When the House first passed the measure earlier this year, 49 Republicans voted aye.

Some Republicans are pivoting off their traditional anti-drug platform at a time when most voters live in states where medical marijuana is legal, in many cases as a result of ballot measures.

Polls show that while Republican voters are far less likely than the broader public to support outright legalization, they favor allowing marijuana for medical use by a commanding majority. Legalization also has great appeal to millennials, a demographic group with which Republicans are aggressively trying to make inroads.

Approval of the pot measure comes after the Obama administration directed federal prosecutors last year to stop enforcing drug laws that contradict state marijuana policies. Since then, federal raids of marijuana merchants and growers who are operating legally in their states have been limited to those accused of other violations, such as money laundering.

“The federal government should never get in between patients and their medicine,” said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland).

evan.halper@latimes.com

Twitter: @evanhalper

Congress quietly ends federal government’s ban on medical marijuana

Congress Quietly Puff, Puff, Passes on the Feds’ Medical Marijuana Ban

The feds can no longer rain all over states where medical marijuana is legal, ending an era of raids on dispensaries and the patients who depend on their medicine.

Basically, a measure to end the federal government’s ban on medical MJ was included in a 1,603-page spending bill passed by Congress the weekend of December 13th. According to the new rules, which Obama will sign into law this week, the government can no longer use their funding to mess with marijuana pharmacies.

Unfortunately for the states where even recreational weed is legal, the new law won’t have an effect on nonmedical marijuana shops. Sorry, Colorado/Washington/Oregon/Alaska/Washington, D.C. Your time will come.

While Obama’s been proceeding this way for a while now, the new strategy wasn’t yet written into law. By making it official, the government’s making a permanent move away from old rules that many saw as oppressive.

Medical marijuana is currently legal in 32 states, although the DEA continues to classify it among the most dangerous narcotics, saying it has no medical use. However, cannabis has gained quite a reputation for treating kids with seizure disorders, helping cancer patients retain their appetites, and even decreasing suicide rates among young male smokers.

According to the ACLU, 52 percent of all drug arrests in 2010 had to do with marijuana — and black people are almost four times as likely as Caucasians to be arrested for pot. In other words, this new bill has the potential to save the United States a whole lot of money while ending a few seriously harmful policing practices along the way.

Could this be the beginning of the end for marijuana prohibition?


ryot.org: Congress Quietly Puff, Puff, Passes on the Feds’ Medical Marijuana Ban

Bill introduced in Congress would spare marijuana users from federal prosecution in states where pot is legal

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), the bipartisan bill’s main sponsor, called the measure a ‘common-sense approach’ that respects individual states’ marijuana laws. Eighteen states and Washington, D.C. have laws legalizing the use of medical marijuana, while Colorado and Washington state voted in 2012 to legalize it for recreational use.

A bill introduced Friday would give immunity from prosecution of federal marijuana laws in states where voters have passed laws legalizing the drug.

These are high times for states rights.

A bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives Friday that would effectively tell the U.S. Justice Department to stop going after marijuana users in states where the drug has been made legal for either medical or recreational use.

Dubbed the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act, H.R. 1523 would modify the federal Controlled Substances Act and grant immunity from federal prosecution to any person acting in accordance with state marijuana laws.

Eighteen states have legalized medical marijuana, while Colorado and Washington voters passed measures legalizing the recreational use of pot. 

"This bipartisan bill represents a common-sense approach that establishes federal government respect for all states’ marijuana laws,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), the bill’s main sponsor, said in a press release. “It does so by keeping the federal government out of the business of criminalizing marijuana activities in states that don’t want it to be criminal."

So far, 18 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws legalizing the use of medical marijuana, and in 2012 Washington and Colorado became the first two states to legalize the recreational use of the drug for people over the age of 21.

The bill’s bipartisan sponsors include Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Don Young (R-Alaska), Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.).

A record high 52% of Americans now favor legalizing marijuana.  

 

A survey released last week by the Pew Research Center found that, for the first time, more Americans now favor legalizing marijuana. Fifty-two percent of those asked said they thought pot should be legal, while 45% said the drug should be illegal.

As voters in more states have legalized marijuana, the drug is still classified as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act, and its possession, sale and use is subject to prosecution.

Public opinion, however, appears to be in staunch opposition to the enforcement federal marijuana laws over state measures.

Sixty percent of those surveyed told Pew that the federal government should not try to prosecute marijuana users in states where the drug has been made legal.

Bill introduced in Congress would spare marijuana users from federal prosecution in states where pot is legal

Marijuana's Top Lobbyist Told Us Why There Will Be Several Viable Legalization Bills Next Year In Congress

On election day Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana, becoming the first states in the entire world to do so. 

Allen St. Pierre is the Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), the main marijuana use advocacy group in the United States.NORML is the lobbyist, Political Action Committee, and electoral powerhouse behind medical marijuana laws, decriminalization laws, and now legalization.

Needless to say, he's ecstatic about the results.

"A major corner has been turned in American politics," St. Pierre told Business Insider. "Without being too hyperbolic, for all intents and purposes cannabis prohibition likely began its end last Tuesday night."

Youtube Allen St. Pierre

He's got a lot of reasons to be confident. Voters in Washington and Colorado voted at around 54% to completely legalize the cultivation, sale, regulation and consumption of marijuana. This is a first — not just in the U.S., but in the world.
While the Netherlands are known for their tolerance of marijuana, it's not actually legal to consume it. Colorado and Washington have sincerely changed the game.
The votes are also relatively conclusive. "These folks are not aberrational. They don't speak to a level of liberalness or progressively in these states," St. Pierre said.
That seems to be true. two major groups that have evaded legalization advocates — women and Latinos — came out in large margins to support the measures. Republicans, while not supporting it in the majority, voted around forty percent for it. By all counts, this isn't a one-party issue.

What happens now is the truly interesting part: What happens when something goes from the black market to legality?
"That's the $40 billion question," St. Pierre said, citing the high-end estimate for the current marijuana market.
Bolstering confidence is the President's silence. That's exactly what advocates like St. Pierre wanted to see.
"The Obama administration committed no political capital to oppose these initiative. Usually a week or two out from these initiative votes we would see the organs of the government pushing hard."
NORML couldn't find any evidence of Attorney General Eric Holder, Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, or any other federal official publicly opposing the initiatives. "They wouldn't even return phone calls from ABC News and others leading up to the election," St. Pierre said, "and here we are a week later and they're still pretty much sitting on their thumbs."

What's happened is a "crossing of the Rubicon" moment for marijuana reform, according to NORML. According to the 1961 Narcotic Treaty, no nation is supposed to let a constituent state legalize marijuana. Allen joked that even he, as the head of NORML, could see that clearly "the state of Colorado is in total violation of federal and international law."
"I assume we're probably going to take another rocket ride up to the Supreme Court again," he said.
Now, NORML may actually have a shot in the high court. The last time they were in front of the Supreme Court in 2005, they lost their case in a 6-3 split. But what is going on outside the marble columns of the Court is even more interesting. Then, there were only around 300 marijuana dispensaries. Today, there are more than 5,000 marijuana businesses nationwide. Did they really lose?

As a result of this real-world shift, the political climate on Capitol Hill is much more willing to talk pot.
"Ten years ago, we were lepers," said St. Pierre. "They wouldn't even take our PAC donations. So what happened in this election? Numerous governors, congressmen, and senators called and said "Hey, I've changed my mind, I support these reforms, give me money."
As lobbyists, NORML has been writing and proposing legislation for years designed to tackle the "baby steps" of marijuana legalization.
They've got bills that would enact degrees of decriminalization, making certain violations of the law into infractions rather than misdemeanors with jail time. They've got medical marijuana bills, bills for industrial hemp, and sentencing reform.

When they recently began getting phone calls from congressmen looking to enact marijuana reform, they rolled out the usual script.

"When we sat down with these representatives, we began with our usual playbook," St. Pierre said. "They said "We don't care about decrim anymore. We want a tax and regulate bill from you folks." And that's where we find ourselves now, up to our ears with the staff and the parliamentarians writing at breakneck speed, because we've got folks competing on the Hill now against each other as to who is going to write the biggest, best, most popular marijuana bill."

Allen said with near certainty that yes, there will be a marijuana legalization bill with actual support this year.
In fact, he said, there will be multiple bills, from different parts of the country, all trying to beat each other. "This past week," St. Pierre said, "the didactic, the polemic, and the strategies have all changed."
The question then becomes: What the heck is President Obama going to do about this?
St. Pierre is confident. He said that — as a Senator — Obama gave one of the most compelling, lucid arguments for marijuana decriminalization out there. "This is the first President of the United States who has a genuine history of using and enjoying marijuana," St. Pierre said. "He knows the right end of a joint."
Even more, it's only a matter of time before industry gets involved. The most applicable business model is the tobacco companies', and St. Pierre has reached out to the major firms already.
"They've been either growing or purchasing — in massive quantities — vegetable material, properly curing it, packaging it in usable form, and then working closely with all level of government while delivering massive taxes."

He sent two memos the morning after election day — One to the President, the other to the heads of the major tobacco companies. The message was simple: "Isn't it time that we meet?"
Now, after 22 years at NORML and 15 at the helm, St. Pierre is seeing returns on all the work. What once was dismissed as a quixotic political strategy is in vogue. He's got the attention of Governors, the ear of congressmen, and the strength of the people. This is the hard part, but the pitch remains the same.
It is an absurdity, he says, that people are paying hundreds of dollars for dried vegetable matter. The even bigger absurdity, in his eyes, is that the Government is getting nothing out of the deal. In a post-November 2012 America, that's on the track to change.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/marijuanas-top-lobbyist-told-us-why-there-will-be-several-viable-legalization-bills-next-year-in-congress-2012-11#ixzz2DKTLo27c