U.S. Rep Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) sent a letter to his colleagues in the U.S. Senate, urging them to pass the SAFE Banking Act.
The SAFE Banking Act, which Perlmutter sponsored, would allow legal, licensed cannabis businesses to have access to banking. Currently, federal law restricts legally operating businesses from accessing basic banking services, forcing them to operate as cash-only. This leads to the potential for robberies and crime.
“As you work through the summer to finalize comprehensive cannabis legislation, I ask you and your colleagues to take the first step in reforming our cannabis laws and pass the SAFE Banking Act in the America COMPETES Act or as a standalone bill as soon as possible,” Perlmutter wrote to U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), chair of the Senate Banking Committee, and Ron Wyden (D-OR), chair of Senate Finance Committee.
Perlmutter first introduced the bill in 2013, and it took six years to pass in the House as a standalone bill, but it failed to get Senate support and died. It has passed in the House five times since then, most recently on April 21, 2021. The Senate is now considering that current bill, potentially as part of the America COMPETES Act.
“The SAFE Banking Act is an immediate solution to get cash off our streets and ensure state-legal, legitimate businesses can operate like any other type of business, particularly small and minority-owned cannabis businesses who have been disproportionately impacted by the lack of banking services. It will also make our communities safer from the increased risk of robberies facing cannabis businesses and employees which continue to occur, including three people who died during robberies in one week last month in Washington state,” Perlmutter wrote.
The Colorado congressman added that the outdated federal laws are not in sync with states, which do not have the same restrictions on banking for cannabis businesses. Perlmutter added that it could be an “icebreaker” for other reforms related to banking, tax issues, and addressing the War on Drugs,
“We cannot let our fight for comprehensive cannabis reform stall progress this year,” Perlmutter concluded in the letter. “This would be to the detriment of thousands of state-legal businesses, their employees, and the safety of our communities.”