Week in Review: Cannabis Election Map Set, Credit Unions Get Serious, Puerto Rico Fight
By John Schroyer and Omar Sacirbey
The November cannabis election map is essentially finalized, credit unions get serious about marijuana businesses, and a Denver attorney weighs in on the MJ software battle in Puerto Rico.
Heres a closer look at some notable developments in the marijuana industry over the past week.
The Magnificent Nine
The nationwide electoral map for cannabis advocates and companies is basically set, following this weeks news from Missouri that a medical marijuana campaign lost a fight for a spot on the November ballot.
The nine states in play are:
- Arkansas (medical)
- Arizona (recreational)
- California (recreational)
- Florida (medical)
- Maine (recreational)
- Massachusetts (recreational)
- Montana (legalize dispensaries)
- Nevada (recreational)
- North Dakota (medical)
Five will vote on whether to legalize recreational use. Three will vote on whether to legalize medical. And one Montana will vote on whether to establish a regulated MMJ system that would legalize dispensaries.
This year will be incredibly significant, in that it will advance the discussion, Mason Tvert, communications director at the Marijuana Policy Project, said.I will predict that whether all of these initiatives win or all of them lose, we will be significantly closer to ending marijuana prohibition than we were before Election Day.
Tvert declined to say whether he was happy with the cannabis electoral map, and he declined to offer specific predictions on state campaigns.
Theres a strong amount of support and a growing desire to end marijuana prohibition in many states. The question is not whether theres enough support for reform, but whether theres enough support for the specifics of these proposals, Tvert said.
That said, the 2016 election is certain to be a historic one for cannabis entrepreneurs and advocates, because there have never been this many states weighing in on either medical or recreational marijuana in a single year.
That means Nov. 8 could become a watershed date for cannabis.
Credit Unions Get Serious
The credit union industry is getting serious about serving marijuana businesses.
A top editor at the Credit Union Times argues that more credit unionsshould take on marijuana businesses as customers.
(I)ts time for more credit unions to embrace the idea of serving the marijuana industry, Natasha Chilingerian, the trade publications managing editor, wrote in a recent opinion piece published on the Credit Union Times website.
The good news for marijuana businesses in search of banks is that Chilingerian is not a lone voice in the credit union sector.
At least one major industry organization, the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, is trying to educate members about how to serve canna-businesses in accordance with state law as well as guidelines issued in 2014 by the U.S. Treasury Departments Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. FinCENs guidelines outline how financial institutions can serve canna-business clients.
Marijuana banking is a developing issue that we continue to actively monitor, along with many others, for potential impact to the credit union industry, Carrie Hunt, NAFCUs executive vice president of government affairs and general counsel,wrotein an email.
Hunt added that her organization has written about the topic on its compliance blog. And the group will featureit on Oct. 27 during a panel discussion at its Bank Secrecy Act conference in New Orleans.
The BSA is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the FinCEN guidelines to comply with, requiring time-consuming and labor-intensive record keeping and paperwork. The NAFCU panel entitled Serving Marijuana Business and Your BSA Obligations aims to clarify how your credit union can provide services to marijuana-related businesses consistent with your BSA obligations.
Cutthroat Tactics in Puerto Rico
Filing formal complaints ...
