Marijuana Banking Amendment Could Be Added To Cryptocurrency Bill In Senate This Week, Opposition Group Warns

A leading anti-marijuana group is sounding the alarm about a possible attempt to put cannabis banking reform in a cryptocurrency bill that’s advancing on the Senate floor this week, asking for “help” from their supporters to encourage members to oppose a potential amendment that could be offered up.

In an email blast on Wednesday, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) Action said “the pot industry and its lobbyists are always working to attach pro-marijuana bills to any piece of legislation that advances through Congress,” and it’s concerned they’ll try to insert cannabis banking language into the largely unrelated Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.

“The Senate will soon take up the GENIUS Act, a cryptocurrency bill, and the industry is working hard to include SAFE Banking language,” SAM said, referring to bipartisan legislation that would prevent financial regulators from penalizing banks simply for working with state-legal marijuana businesses.

“This bill will keep marijuana federally illegal while encouraging banks to accept federally illegal proceeds,” it said. “This would mean exponential growth for the marijuana industry, making it harder to defeat.”

“There are number of risks involved with giving banking access to businesses involved in the trade of a federally illegal substance including giving money laundering access to international drug cartels who are already using the cover of legalization, radically increasing Wall Street investment for the marijuana industry, and providing a precedent for giving banking access to other criminal activity.”

Despite SAM’s apparent concerns, an industry lobbyist told Marijuana Moment on Wednesday that they were unaware of any plan to use the GENIUS Act as a vehicle for SAFE Banking. At the time of publication, no amendment related to SAFE have been formally filed for Senate consideration.

But in any case, SAM is urging its supporters to contact their representatives and tell them to “oppose SAFE Banking being added to the GENIUS Act.”

Here’s the pre-written letter that the anti-cannabis group drafted for people to submit to their senators:

“I am writing you today to inform you that an amendment could be offered in the Senate to the GENIUS Act that would allow the marijuana industry access to the United States financial system.

This amendment, a version of the SAFE Banking Act (H.R. 2891 & S. 1323 in the 118th Congress) would keep marijuana federally illegal while encouraging banks to accept federally illegal proceeds.

There are myriad of risks involved with giving banking access to businesses involved in the trade of a federally illegal substance such as:

-Giving money laundering access to international drug cartels who are already using the cover of legalization;   – Radically increasing Wall Street investment for the marijuana industry, accelerating its transformation into the next Big Tobacco; and

-Providing a precedent for giving banking access to other criminal activity.

Public health and public opinion data strongly indicates that we should be pumping the brakes on more marijuana: we have seen increased incidents of serious mental illness, increased drugged-driving fatalities, increased emergency room visits and poison control calls, and increased worker accidents and absenteeism. Granting access to banking would put the pedal to the metal on the creation of industry dedicated to denying the science of marijuana and promoting heavy use of its products.

I urge you to oppose this amendment and take all possible actions to remove it from any final passage of the GENIUS Act.”

During the last Congress, lawmakers did talk about potentially merging cannabis banking and cryptocurrency legislation, but that did not materialize. The standalone Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act did clear one Senate committee with the chamber under Democratic control, but it was never brought up for a floor vote—much to the disappointment of advocates and stakeholders.

Now with Republicans in control of both chambers and key leadership positions filled by opponents of marijuana legalization, it’s been an open question about whether any cannabis reform legislation stands a chance of passage in the short-term. That’s despite the fact that President Donald Trump endorsed marijuana industry banking access, federal rescheduling and a Florida legalization initiative on the campaign trail. However, he’s been silent on the issue since taking office.

The White House said last month that it has “no action” planned on marijuana reform proposals that Trump backed while campaigning. But several sources told CNN the president did attempt to get cannabis banking legislation included in a government funding bill late last year before he took office.

On the House side, a Republican lawmaker said in March he’s hopeful that Congress will be able to get a marijuana banking bill across “the finish line” this session, arguing that the current barriers to financial services for the industry represent a “second tier” of prohibition.

Cannabis industry banking challenges came up in several congressional hearings in March, including a Senate Banking Committee meeting on debanking where senators on both sides of the aisle addressed the lack of financial services access for marijuana businesses.

Meanwhile, in January congressional researchers released a report detailing the subject of debanking—while making a point to address how the marijuana industry’s financial services access problem “sits at the nexus” of a state-federal policy conflict that complicates the debate.

Separately, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced in December that it’s convening focus groups comprised of marijuana businesses to better understand their experiences with access to banking services under federal prohibition.

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The industry remains frustrated with the lack of progress on the cannabis banking issue under the last administration.

A Senate source told Marijuana Moment in December that Republican House and Senate leadership “openly and solely blocked” then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) attempt to include the bill in a government funding bill as the session came to a close.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) had challenged the idea that there was enough GOP support for the SAFER Banking Act to pass on the Senate floor during the lame duck session.

Warren accused certain Republican members of overstating support for the legislation within their caucus, while also taking a hit at Trump for doing “nothing” on cannabis reform during his time in office as he makes a policy pivot ahead of the election by coming out in support of the marijuana banking bill and federal rescheduling.

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) also recently argued in an interview with Marijuana Moment that the main barrier to getting the marijuana banking bill across the finish line is a lack of sufficient Republican support in the chamber. And he said if Trump is serious about seeing the reform he recently endorsed enacted, he needs to “bring us some Republican senators.”

Prior to becoming House speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) consistently opposed cannabis reform, including on incremental issues like cannabis banking and making it easier to conduct scientific research on the plant.

Meanwhile, on the one-year anniversary of a Senate committee’s passage of the SAFER Banking Act in September, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an analysis on the economic impact of the reform, including the likely increase in federally insured deposits from cannabis businesses by billions of dollars once banks receive protections for servicing the industry.

Separately, the CEO of the financial giant JPMorgan Chase said recently that the company “probably would” start providing banking services to marijuana businesses if federal law changed to permit it.

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