The Biden administration’s move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous but still controlled drug was hailed as a monumental step in reshaping national policy
The Biden administration’s move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous but still controlled drug was hailed as a monumental step in reshaping national policy. But it might do little to ease a longstanding problem in the cannabis industry — a lack of loans, checking accounts and banking services that other businesses take for granted.
“As far as financial institutions, I don’t necessarily think it’s going to have a demonstrable effect” on how they deal with cannabis operators, said Morgan Fox, political director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.
Similarly, a banking trade group expected no shift in the legal landscape with the proposed change.
“Any potential decision from the administration to reclassify cannabis has no bearing on the legal issues around banking cannabis,“ said Blair Bernstein, a spokesperson for the American Bankers Association. “Cannabis would still be illegal under federal law, and that is a line many banks in this country will not cross.”
Most Americans live in states where marijuana is legally available in some form. But there’s a continuing problem when it comes to banks: Many financial institutions don’t want anything to do with money from the cannabis industry for fear it could expose them to legal trouble from the federal government, which still lists marijuana as illegal.
That conflict has left many growers and sellers in the burgeoning industry in a legal conundrum in which they are shut out of everyday financial services like opening a bank account or obtaining a credit card.
