U.S. Senate Banking Chair Michael Crapo, an Idaho Republican, laid the foundation for his own version of cannabis banking reform with a potentially onerous THC potency cap when he released a statement saying he doesn’t support the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking (SAFE) Act as is.
In September, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the SAFE Act, which would pave the way for financial institutions to serve state-legal marijuana businesses without fear of federal reprisal.
Senate approval was expected to prove a higher hurdle, and Crapo’s announcement Wednesday signals banking reform at the federal level will likely take longer than many in the cannabis industry had hoped.
Among other things, the Idaho Republican is considering a 2% THC potency cap on cannabis products for businesses to be eligible for financial services, substantially below current levels of 12% or more typically seen on retail shelves in state-legal markets.
Crapo’s statement , which also detailed his concerns about marijuana marketing tactics to youth, money laundering and interstate commerce, were consistent with concerns he’s expressed before, but came in a more formal request for public input.
“Chairman Crapo’s approach hasn’t changed,” David Mangone, a cannabis lobbyist with The Liaison Group in Washington DC, wrote in an email to Marijuana Business Daily . The Liaison Group does lobbying for the National Cannabis Roundtable.
“The concerns he outlined in his memo are ones he has been saying publicly since the passage of SAFE Banking in the House.”
But Mangone wrote that the statement implies that Crapo will engage in a “deliberative process on how to address these concerns before releasing a bill of his own.”
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