Marijuana Dispensaries Are Buying Safes to Store Cash After Feds Scare Away Banks
On Friday, the last bank in Colorado to openly work with the medical-marijuana industry -- Colorado Springs State Bank -- officially closed down the accounts of dispensaries and others in the state's legal marijuana business over concerns about working with companies that are, by definition, breaking federal law.
The feds, as journalist Clarence Walker wrote for us last spring, have not told banks they cannot handle dispensaries' funds. Rather, they've instructed the banks to carefully monitor dispensary accounts for irregularities. This (perhaps intentionally, one wonders) has spooked the banks about the whole thing. Credit card processing companies have also been pulling out of the medical marijuana sector.
The industry isn't taking things sitting down. They are lobbying the state legislature for permission to open a credit union, according to the Post, although it would likely be unable to procure depositors insurance. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Boulder) in May introduced the Small Business Banking Improvement Act, H.R. 1984, to address the dispensary banking problem. (Click here to write Congress supporting this and other pro-medical marijuana bills that are active this year.)
In the meanwhile, one has to ask whether the DOJ officials who've created this situation understand how crime works or if they care:
The owner of the Colorado Springs dispensary [interviewed by the Post] -- who didn't want his name or the name of his business used for fear of attracting thieves -- said he will have to stick money in there instead of depositing it into a bank account. He's also planning to take a class this weekend to get a concealed-weapons permit, for protection outside the store.
"Any way you plan it out," the owner said, "there's going to be a large amount of cash around. And that's extremely scary."
He's also buying a "really big safe."
Ironically, just last month a RAND study on medical marijuana dispensaries and crime found they don't increase neighborhood crime, and that crime actually may have increased in Los Angeles in the vicinity of former dispensaries after the council closed down a majority of them last year. It's only one study and we shouldn't leap to conclusions, but it's a good sign. The feds may be on their way to creating more crime where there isn't already, though, if someone doesn't put the brakes on.
Watch & Learn
Watch & Learn how our government works.
So, the banks will no longer accept cash from MMJ businesses. The banks adopted this policy as a direct result of intimidation by the Feds. The Feds are doing this so that dispensaries will have to keep their cash on the property. Can you just see it now? The property will be raided for some nebulous "violation", and the cash will be taken and shared by the various law enforcement agencies to buy machine guns, tanks and SAM missiles. Then, in a predictable way, they will find new and interesting ways to use these new toys of mass destruction on you, your children and your grandparents, killing everyone.
For your safety, you know.
Protect & Serve (Themselves!)
legalize heroin
http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2011/09/legalize-heroin/
When the place is robbed, the
When the place is robbed, the Feds will naturally say that it was done by someone on drugs.
Well good, that makes it easier to avoid the IRS.
This latest example of federal thuggery expands the treasonous acts committed by our criminal government. There is no amendment to the article describing what an act of treason is, Article 3 section 3. Waging war on the states, and providing aid and comfort to their enemies. How much more aid can our federal government provide? They've driven up the price, give them exemption from tax's, and made them rich, all while waging war on American's that disagree with their voodoo science policies. Drug laws are unconstitutional, nowhere in the constitution does it prohibit, or give the power to prohibit drugs. What we have is an unconstitutional government. Any and all laws that contradict the constitution are null and void on their face, and all those who support such laws no longer represent the US government, instant resignation, no lawyers, no trial, no appeal, no job, simple. And these idiots keep on "working" like they still have a job. It would be a misappropriation of funds to keep paying those who support the war on drugs, but apparently nobody told them.
This is anti-business. Do
This is anti-business. Do these morons want to improve the economy or help destroy it? Medical marijuana is a boom! Now get the fuck out of patient's lives and let the residual economic benefits trickle throughout the economy.
If you kick a dispensary out of business -- you leave a vacant retail space that is not easy to fill. Let some pea brains shut down a dispensary industry in a region and you LOSE many jobs. Hey Fed, we want more jobs not less, you freaks! Medical marijuana fills retail space, creates jobs, brings new consumers to an economic area, and improves business for BANKS (!)
Can we please have a little sanity to the discussion, instead of cowboys and guns? Surely there must be some people working for the Fed govt that understand the value of allowing and encouraging new business?
Drug law
All drugs should be legalized ,just for the reason that it would keep all the large profits out of the trade so it should shut down gangs fighting for territory or turf.it would get some taxes from some people and the ones wiyh out the money for the taxes ,for it is cheaper to try to help the getting them off the strong drugs, which is cheaper than putting them in jail.I could go on but will stop for now.People ar GUNNA do drug for recreation no matter what the laws are.This has been going on for over 40 years and it's stiklll the same so it must be keeping the police state going .Oh I lyed about shutting up.
Post new comment