The Federal Government is moving to make it easier on states where selling marijuana is legal. Eric Holder announced that U.S. Treasury and law enforcement agencies will be issuing new regulations opening banking services to state-sanctioned marijuana businesses even though the plant is still an illegal narcotic under federal law.
He also added that the new rules will make it easier for newly licensed medical marjuana dispensaries and recreational retailers in Washington State and Colorado to manage their funds through banking services.
This will reduce the risk of the retailers from getting robbed and will be able to pay employees through payroll instead of keeping the cash on hand. This will also benefit the state government to tax the revenue of the sales the retailers bring in.
"You don't want just huge amounts of cash in these places," Holder told
the audience at the University of Virginia. "They want to be able to
use the banking system. And so we will be issuing some regulations I
think very soon to deal with that issue."
He also added, "There's a public safety component to this," he said. "Huge amounts of
cash - substantial amounts of cash just kind of lying around with no
place for it to be appropriately deposited - is something that would
worry me just from a law enforcement perspective."
Holder isn't the only one that has been concerned about the safety of the dispensaries but his deputy James Cole also expressed this concern in September.
This comes at a time when Colorado has already enacted it's new marijuana consumption law, with Washington state right behind them. Other states like Alaska, California and Oregon is also on it's way making marijuana legal as early as 2014.
Though Holder didn't mention specifics to how long it will take for the new banking laws to be enacted, but this a step in the right direction.
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