GOP lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives this week removed legislative provisions to protect banks that serve cannabis businesses from a federal funding bill after resistance from fellow Republicans. The legislation was removed from the financial services and general government bill that provides annual funding for the Treasury Department and federal payments for the District of Columbia and the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as other federal agencies, according to a report from The Hill.

The cannabis banking provisions of the bill would have blocked federal funds from being used to “penalize a financial institution solely because the institution provides financial services” to businesses involved in the hemp and state-legal cannabis industries. The legislation was included in the Republicans’ initial draft version of one of the dozen annual funding bills GOP leaders hope to pass into law before election season heats up this fall.

GOP Representative Dave Joyce of Ohio, the co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus and the chair of the House subcommittee responsible for drafting the funding bill, said that the cannabis banking provisions were struck from the legislation after some of his fellow Republicans had “taken issue” with the measure.

“With over 40 states enacting some degree of cannabis reform, it is past time that the federal government respect the will of these states. This issue is especially pertinent as cannabis regulations have been proven to increase public safety and quality of life for Americans,” Joyce said at a subcommittee markup hearing for the legislation earlier this month, The Hill reported.

“My Financial Services and General Government bill included provisions to do just that and ensure states’ rights to make the best choices for their unique constituencies are protected,” the lawmaker added.

During the subcommittee markup hearing, North Carolina GOP Representative Chuck Edwards attacked the cannabis banking provisions of the funding bill, characterizing the legislation as “affirmative authorization disguised as a limitation” and noting that marijuana is still illegal under federal law.

“Our country has never allowed a federally illegal activity to be banked, and it’s important to note that, despite some states trying to legalize marijuana, still a Schedule I drug, marijuana is still illegal,” Edwards told his fellow lawmakers on the subcommittee. “And I believe that it should remain illegal. It’s dangerous, and more and more evidence is being found that it causes irreparable harm, particularly to younger minds.”

Cannabis Banking Legislation An Elusive Goal

Although the Biden administration has taken steps to reclassify cannabis under the Controlled Substances Act, the full legalization of recreational marijuana at the federal level is still seemingly years away. While Congress is still opposed to comprehensive legalization, many lawmakers, particularly from states that have legalized medical marijuana or adult-use cannabis, want to see federal banking restrictions on cannabis businesses eased. Under federal drug and money laundering laws, financial institutions are subjected to onerous federal restrictions on cannabis business accounts, making banking services for weed companies expensive or unattainable.

Legislation to ensure equal access to banking services for businesses in the cannabis industry, the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, has been passed in the House, either as standalone legislation or attached to another bill, more than half a dozen times. But so far, the Senate has failed to bring the legislation, including a revamped measure known as the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, up for a vote by the full chamber.

After the cannabis provisions were stricken from the funding bill, Joyce vowed to continue efforts to ease banking restrictions on marijuana businesses.

“While the provisions maintain strong bipartisan support, as Chairman, I will work to alleviate their concerns but will not delay my responsibility to fund the government and therefore my legislation in the meantime,” he said Thursday. “However, let me be clear, I will not abandon this effort in Congress and will continue to work with my colleagues in good faith to ensure they become law.”

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Two-time Superbowl Champion Jim McMahon and All-Pro offensive lineman Kyle Turley are hinting at a run for the White House with a campaign built on passing a banking bill for legal marijuana businesses and creating awareness for the benefits of cannabis, according to a report from Fox Sports.

McMahon, who played quarterback for the Chicago Bears, and Turley, a first-round pick by the New Orleans Saints in the 1998 NFL draft, are co-founders of the cannabis brand Revenant along with fellow professional football player Eben Britton. According to the company website, a “mutual respect and understanding of the healing principles the cannabis plant provides brought these gentlemen together and fuels [their] desire to share it with the world.”

Last week, Turley visited New Hampshire to share his advocacy with Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and Democrat Dean Phillips, who has launched a long-shot bid to overtake President Joseph Biden in the race for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. During the visits, Turley reportedly talked up the benefits of cannabis and urged the candidates to support the Secure and Fair Enforcement and Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, legislation that would give regulated cannabis companies access to traditional business banking services.

Now, McMahon is teasing a potential run for president with Turley as his running mate, according to the Fox Sports report, with a platform based on cannabis advocacy and support for the marijuana banking bill.

“We’re trying to get the message out about this cannabis plant and about fair banking,” McMahon told Fox News Digital. “We’re trying to bring awareness, not only to the cannabis industry but things that are going bad in this country. We’re going to make a little bit of noise. We might get some votes just for the cannabis part. We’re gonna have some fun with it. We’re gonna try and grow our brand and make people aware about this plant. We’ll see what happens.”

Cannabis Banking Bill Pending in the Senate

The SAFER Banking Act was approved by the Senate Banking Committee in September and advanced for consideration by the full Senate. The bill is a revamped version of the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, a bill to provide cannabis companies access to traditional banking services that was passed by the House of Representatives seven times. 

Under current federal law, providing financial services to cannabis companies is strictly regulated, leaving many businesses—particularly small, independent operators—without access to bank accounts, credit card processing and other financial services. As a result, many businesses operate exclusively or largely in cash, leaving operators and their customers and staff vulnerable to crime. 

The SAFER Banking Act would remove the barriers to financial services for cannabis companies. Financial institutions would not be required to offer banking services to cannabis companies, but the bill discourages banks and credit unions from denying such services based on “personal beliefs or political motivations.” The measure also directs the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to amend previous guidance on cannabis banking services within six months and for “depository institutions” to comply with the agency’s new regulations.

Immigration and Homelessness Also On Campaign Platform

In addition, to cannabis banking and advocacy, McMahon shared other themes of the hypothetical presidential campaign, touching on immigration, homelessness, taxation and spending policy.

“I’d close the damn borders for one and then go find all the people that got in here illegally,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. We’re paying all this money as taxpayers, and it’s not helping us at all. We’re sending it all overseas, you know. Who knows where we’re sending it, but it’s not being used here in the states. “You look at California. They get the most money every year for homelessness, and they got the worst homeless population in the country or probably the world. There’s just so many things going wrong. We got to just stop the crazy spending and printing money and close our borders and let’s clean house.”

McMahon played 15 years as an NFL quarterback, leading the Chicago Bears to the Superbowl championship following the 1985 season, later winning another ring with the Green Bay Packers. His experience with the pain and recovery associated with playing professional football led him to advocate for the NFL to change its policy surrounding cannabis use.

“They need it for physical recovery,” McMahon recently told Forbes. “There’s no doubt about it. I mean, it’s the only neuroprotectant that has a patent on it. Why can’t they freely use that, rather than things that only mask the pain? That’s all they do. They don’t heal the body, they don’t help the body. They ruin your body, you get addicted to them, and they kill people, whereas cannabis has never killed anybody.”

After being drafted by the Saints in 1998 and playing there for five seasons, Turley spent a year with the St. Louis Rams. A back injury prevented him from playing in 2004 and 2005, but he returned to NFL action to finish his career with two seasons on the Kansas City Chiefs. He has been a vocal cannabis advocate since he retired from the NFL and has also lobbied the league to lift its ban on cannabis.

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Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek recently rejected a bill that would have created a State Public Bank Task Force. The 19-person team would have studied the pros and cons related to a cannabis business banking solution in the form of a public bank and would have proposed recommendations for implementation. 

Chief sponsors included Rep. Mark Gamba, Rep. Jules Walters, and Sen. Jeff Golden, who introduced House Bill 2763 in January. The bill steadily made its way through the House and Senate and was passed by both by the end of June before it was vetoed by Kotek on Aug. 4.

In a press statement published on July 28 to cover her thoughts on “potential vetoes,” Kotek said that she took issue with HB-2763. “Reason for possible objection: While the Governor supports exploring the creation of a state bank, this bill has several logistical challenges, including directing the Oregon Business Development Department (OBDD), which already manages over 80 programs, to manage a new task force, establish an RFP process, and finalize a substantive report on an abbreviated timeline,” the notice stated.

Had HB-2763 been approved, it would have explored “potential benefits and harms from the bank to state and local jurisdictions and private industries,” as well as “governing and corporate structures for the bank” and other goals. Ultimately, the task force’s research would have served as a way to create a publicly controlled bank that would save public dollars, and “spur greater economic activity within this state.” The task force would have also provided a detailed report of its findings on or before September 2024.

Furthermore, both committees sought to “…analyze challenges and barriers to providing banking services to legal adult-use cannabis businesses and examine pathways to allowing banking services to the burgeoning cannabis industry in New York.”

Banking access for cannabis businesses is an issue nationwide, and other states have attempted to pass legislation to ensure the safety of cannabis business owners as well as further legitimize the industry.

In March 2022, Pennsylvania legislators Rep. John DiSanto and Rep. Sharif Street proposed a cannabis banking bill. “Access to financial and insurance services is essential for operating any business, and it is against the public interest to relegate a multi-billion-dollar industry to deal in piles of cash,” said DiSanto. “Banking this cash safely in Pennsylvania provides certainty for businesses, is a huge opportunity to grow our economy and should ultimately lower costs for medical cannabis consumers.” Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf signed the legislation in July 2022.

Last October, Rep. Dan Donovan and former Indiana Pacers NBA athlete David Harrison proposed a banking solution called Token HiFi which would have offered a safe and reliable solution for cannabis banking services.

In December, the most recent attempt to get the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act was introduced again, but it was left out of the National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA). The Senate Majority Leader has led many efforts to get the bill passed, and although it has been met with opposition, progress continues to be made. “It’s a priority for me,” Schumer said about the bill last year. “I’d like to get it done. We’ll try and discuss the best way to get it done.”

At the time, Republican opponents such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Democrats of including “unrelated” items in the defense bill. “Even now, House and Senate Democrats are still obstructing efforts to close out the NDAA by trying to jam in unrelated items with no relationship to defense,” said McConnell. “We’re talking about a grab bag of miscellaneous pet priorities—like making our financial system more sympathetic to illegal drugs, or the phony, partisan permitting-‘reform’-in-name-only language that already failed to pass the Senate this year.”

Earlier this year in May, the New York Assembly Standing Committee on Banks and the Assembly Standing Committee on Economic Development, Job Creation, Commerce, and Industry held a hearing to discuss its benefits. “Operating a cash-only business raises challenges including security, payroll, access to loan products, and recordkeeping,” the public hearing memo stated. “These challenges impact both the legal cannabis-related businesses and the banks seeking to provide services.”

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Listen to our expert break it down on NPR.

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Liberal arguments won’t sway votes among House GOP members. But Don Murphy knows how cannabis reform and legalization makes sense to conservatives.

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A noticeable uptick in cannabis delivery driver robberies is being reported in Michigan, as authorities scramble to control the problem before it snowballs into something worse. The Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency (CRA) issued a bulletin Tuesday notifying cannabis businesses there’s been a rise in criminal activity.

Macomb Daily reports that authorities are concerned about the rise in crime in the metropolitan Detroit area. As delivery drivers are forced to carry around dangerous amounts of cash and/or cannabis, they are like sitting ducks with a target on their heads.

According to a recent bulletin issued by the CRA on Jan. 17, officials have “identified a pattern in reported criminal activity involving the drivers,” reporting 13 thefts of cannabis products, all within the past six weeks. The MRA regularly posts bulletins when an issue arises, including when a dangerous pattern emerges.

A rash of burglary incidents have been reported in Hazel Park and Ferndale in Oakland County, Utica in Macomb County, Westland, Hamtramck and Detroit in Wayne County, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Lansing. The burglaries began piling up since the beginning of December 2022.

The data shows that the thefts typically occurred at houses at the time of delivery. In some cases, armed robberies took place in which the drivers were assaulted and their vehicles were stolen.

When a robbery takes place, time is ticking for the victims involved. “Licensees and applicants are reminded that the administrative rules require they notify the CRA and local law enforcement authorities within 24 hours of becoming aware of—or within 24 hours of when the licensees should have been aware of—the theft or loss of any product or criminal activity at the marijuana business,” the CRA said in a press release.

“All suspicious activity should be reported to the CRA (using the form available here) and local law enforcement. Questions can be sent to the Cannabis Regulatory Agency Field Operations.”

Licensees are also reminded to watch for and report suspicious activity to police and the CRA. The reporting form is available online.

Not Just the Delivery Drivers are At Risk

Delivery drivers aren’t the only ones being targeted by criminals. Just last November, the CRA said 117 break-ins took place at cannabis businesses from April through November 2022. Authorities also said that the incidents took place primarily at adult-use stores rather than medical cannabis dispensaries.

The CRA says the following tactics were common among break-ins: A suspect vehicle parked in the far reaches of the parking lot or across the street; use of a tool such as a hammer or crowbar to enter the back door; or suspects enter the business and take as much as they can and leave before authorities arrive. A majority of the break-ins took place between 12 a.m. and 7 a.m. throughout West Michigan this year, according to the CRA.

It’s not just happening in Michigan, but in Oregon and Washington state as well. Earlier this year, about 30 robberies happened in a one-month span in Washington.

The surges in robberies at licensed cannabis shops and among delivery drivers adds to the urgency for a need for a bill such as the SAFE Banking Act. The SAFE Banking Act, which did not go as far legislatively as people initially suspected in 2022, would solve many of these problems.

“It makes absolutely no sense that legal businesses are being forced to operate entirely in cash, and it’s dangerous—and sometimes even fatal—for employees behind the register,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.

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Democratic U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey says that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is opposed to marijuana policy reform and is blocking cannabis bills from being approved by his Republican colleagues. Booker said that McConnell’s opposition is preventing the passage of marijuana legislation in the upper chamber of Congress before the end of the year, after which control of the House of Representatives will switch to the GOP. 

Cannabis policy reform advocates had hoped to be able to pass meaningful reforms during the current lame-duck session of Congress before control of the House Representatives passes to the Republican Party. But Booker said that McConnell’s opposition to reforms including restorative justice for those harmed by decades of marijuana prohibition and a bill that would allow the legal cannabis industry access to banking services is influencing the stand taken by other GOP senators.

“They’re dead set on anything in marijuana,” Booker told NJ Advance Media. “That to me is the obstacle.”

The Republican party will take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the new session of Congress next year after gaining a slight majority in last month’s midterm elections. Cannabis policy reform is not likely to be a legislative priority for GOP leaders, who have been less enthusiastic about marijuana legalization than their Democratic counterparts. If cannabis policy reform advocates do not pass a bill before the end of the year, the change in House leadership makes progress on the issue a long shot for at least the next two years.

Republican Representative Brian Mast of Florida, the co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, said that cannabis policy reform is consistent with traditional Republican values, but McConnell has failed to take a leadership role on the issue.

“It’s not something that he’s historically been interested in moving or seems to be interested in moving right now,” said Mast. “He should. Just as much as Republicans have been out there arguing states’ rights over Roe v. Wade for the last several months, this is just as much of an issue.”

Hopes For Reform Hinge On SAFE Banking Act

Cannabis policy reform is currently largely focused on the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, which would ease access to traditional financial services for regulated marijuana businesses. Provisions of the bill have been passed by the House of Representatives seven times since 2019, but the measure has failed to gain the approval of the Senate. Most recently, language from the SAFE Banking Act was included in the House version of an annual defense spending bill, but the cannabis provisions were left out of the version released last week.

For the Republicans, bipartisan negotiations on cannabis policy reform are being led by Senator Steve Daines, with the goal of drafting a bill that includes restorative justice provisions championed by Booker while gaining the support of enough GOP senators to be approved in the Senate, where 60 votes from the nearly evenly split body of 100 lawmakers are needed to advance most legislation. 

“The senator is doing everything he can to get this bipartisan bill across the finish line this year for the sake of public safety,” said Rachel Dumke, a spokeswoman for Daines’ office.

But Booker thinks that opposition to marijuana policy reform from McConnell, who has been a leader in hemp legalization, is making his fellow Republicans hesitant to support the SAFE Banking Act or a comprehensive legalization bill.

“The caucus is clearly divided but the people in power in their caucus are clearly against doing anything on marijuana,” Booker said.

Cannabis advocate Justin Strekal, the founder of the marijuana policy reform political action committee BOWL PAC, said that he is hopeful that provisions of the SAFE Banking Act can be attached to an upcoming must-pass omnibus spending bill currently being negotiated in Congress. If the cannabis policy reform measures are part of a larger bill, which would fund the federal government through September of next year, Republican senators could vote for the bill without being forced to openly “defy Mitch McConnell in front of him,” Strekal said. 

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A bid to include the SAFE Banking Act in a must-pass defense spending bill has failed, leaving advocates searching for a way to pass the legislation that would grant the legal cannabis industry access to banking services. Proponents of the measure had hoped to include provisions of the banking bill, known as the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, in the National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA), an annual spending bill that funds the military. But the latest version of the NDAA released on Tuesday did not include the cannabis banking language.

Under the SAFE Banking Act, federal banking regulators would be prohibited from penalizing banks that choose to serve cannabis firms doing business in accordance with state law. Under current regulations, banks are subject to penalties under federal money laundering and other laws for servicing such companies, leaving the cannabis industry to operate in a risky environment heavy in cash. 

The legislation was initially introduced in the House in 2013 by Democratic Rep. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, who has reintroduced the bill each subsequent congressional cycle. The bill has been passed seven times since 2019 by the House of Representatives, but each time the Senate has failed to bring the legislation to the floor for a vote.

Another amendment supported by cannabis policy reform advocates that would have given the states assistance with expunging past marijuana-related convictions also failed to make it to the final version of the defense spending bill. Before the latest text of the NDAA was released on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York told reporters that he was still working on getting the cannabis banking measure passed.

“It’s a priority for me,” Schumer said. “I’d like to get it done. We’ll try and discuss the best way to get it done.”

Republicans Balk At Adding SAFE To Defense Bill

But later in the day, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky admonished Democrats for attempting to attach amendments not related to defense, including the SAFE Banking Act, to the spending bill.

“Even now, House and Senate Democrats are still obstructing efforts to close out the NDAA by trying to jam in unrelated items with no relationship to defense,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on Tuesday. “We’re talking about a grab bag of miscellaneous pet priorities — like making our financial system more sympathetic to illegal drugs, or the phony, partisan permitting-‘reform’-in-name-only language that already failed to pass the Senate this year.”

“If Democrats wanted these controversial items so badly, they had two years to move them across the floor. Heck, they could have scheduled those matters for votes this week. But no — we’re doing more mid-level nominations, while Democrats keep half-threatening to take our Armed Forces hostage over these extraneous matters,” said McConnell, adding “The Democrats’ failure to plan ahead for unrelated liberal pet priorities should not be creating uncertainty and confusion for the brave servicemembers who keep us safe. My colleagues across the aisle need to cut the unrelated hostage-taking and put a bipartisan NDAA on the floor.”

What’s Next?

The failure to include the SAFE Banking Act in the NDAA leaves the prospect of passing the cannabis banking legislation before the current Congress adjourns in two weeks unsettled. Morgan Fox, the political director for the cannabis policy reform group the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said that SAFE could be attached to a pending omnibus appropriations bill or perhaps be approved as standalone legislation.

“I’m glad that we still have other options,” Fox said Wednesday. “It’s pretty disappointing.”

“While there has been momentum and optimism around getting SAFE included in the National Defense Authorization Act, it has been known for some time that getting this through would be a challenge,” Sahar Ayinehsazian, partner at the cannabis law firm Vicente Sederberg LLP, wrote in an email to High Times. “The focus now is on the omnibus appropriations bill, which congress is currently negotiating. SAFE has growing support on both sides of the aisle and I, and many others in the industry close to this issue, think that there is a still a chance that movement can be made on SAFE via the omnibus bill during this session of Congress.”

The SAFE Banking Act is supported by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers made up primarily of representatives and senators from states that have legalized medical marijuana or adult-use cannabis. The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support by a vote of 321-110 in the House last year, and senators from both parties are also in favor of passing the measure.

“The Senator is continuing to work every day to build consensus so we can pass “SAFE Banking” into law this year,” a spokesperson for Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines said in an email on Wednesday.

The senior senator from Montana, Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat, also said he “would like to see it pass this Congress.”

The banking bill is also supported by nearly two dozen governors in states that have liberalized marijuana policy. In a written statement, Conor Cahill, a spokesman for Democratic Colorado Governor Jared Polis, praised the work of Perlmutter and said he expects the legislation to pass this year.

“Governor Polis has long advocated for the passage of the SAFE Banking Act, and has repeatedly called upon Congress to pass this important legislation to protect cannabis-related businesses, support minority, women, and veteran-owned small businesses owners, create jobs, and strengthen public safety in Colorado communities and in the states,” Cahill wrote in a Tuesday email. “We hope and expect to see the final passage of his decade-long effort by the end of the lame-duck session.”

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Proponents’ hopes were dashed once again, after GOP senators fought against including the measure in a defense budget bill.

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday that he and his colleagues are “very close” to passing legislation that would authorize financial institutions to provide services to cannabis businesses.

Speaking during a debate in his New York senate race, Schumer signaled that the SAFE Banking Act may finally be close to earning full passage.

“I am working in a bipartisan way with Democrats and Republicans to take the SAFE Banking Act, which allows financial institutions to involve themselves in cannabis companies and lend money to them—but it also does some things for justice, such as expunging a record,” Schumer said during the debate, as quoted by Seeking Alpha.

The SAFE Banking Act was passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in February, marking the sixth time that the body approved the legislation. 

The legislation was first introduced all the way back in 2013. If it were to become law, it would provide vital resources to cannabis retailers in states where adult-use marijuana has been made legal. 

Those shops have become susceptible to robberies, due to the large amounts of cash on hand. 

In March, the Seattle Times reported that there had already been 70 armed robberies in Washington state in the first three months of the year. That was more than double the total in both 2021 and 2020.

“You rob the places where the cash is,” Washington state treasurer Mike Pellicciotti said on a trip earlier this year to Washington, where he lobbied lawmakers to pass the SAFE Banking Act. “These robberies are tragic. But these robberies are also preventable.”

”You can’t have a $1.4 billion a year transaction taking place in the state of Washington in cash and not have the risk of these type of robberies … It’s time,” Pellicciotti added.

Pellicciotti and other state treasurers have been among the bill’s biggest advocates.

“Colorado weed stores, along with other states with legal cannabis businesses, are headed into their busiest week of the year,” Colorado state treasurer Dave Young tweeted earlier this year ahead of the 4/20 festivities, “yet these businesses must dangerously operate in a cash-based world. Let’s pass the #SAFEBankingAct this #fourtwenty.”

Democratic leaders like Schumer have been determined to pass some form of cannabis reform since the party secured control of Congress and the White House in 2020. 

Schumer spoke confidently last year about passing a federal legalization bill––even as President Joe Biden expressed reluctance about fully lifting prohibition.

“We will move forward,” Schumer said at the time. “[Biden] said he’s studying the issue, so [I] obviously want to give him a little time to study it. I want to make my arguments to him, as many other advocates will. But at some point we’re going to move forward, period.”

In April, the House passed the the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act, which would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, the federal statute that enshrines prohibition. 

Democrats in the Senate said that they would produce their own legalization bill, but the legislation’s release never came.

Now, with the midterm elections slated for next week––and with Democrats in jeopardy of losing control of both the House and the Senate––the hopes for federal legalization are dimming. 

That isn’t to say that cannabis reform advocates have come up completely empty with Democrats in charge.

Last month, Biden announced that he is issuing pardons to everyone with federal convictions for marijuana possession. Biden also signaled a desire to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act.

“Federal law currently classifies marijuana in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the classification meant for the most dangerous substances.  This is the same schedule as for heroin and LSD, and even higher than the classification of fentanyl and methamphetamine – the drugs that are driving our overdose epidemic,” Biden said in his announcement.

“Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana,” he added. “It’s time that we right these wrongs.”

As Seeking Alpha noted, the version of the SAFE Banking Act under consideration “includes both banking reform and marijuana conviction expungements.”

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