A Biden administration plan to ease federal restrictions on marijuana is unlikely by itself to eliminate the legal risks for financial institutions serving marijuana businesses, with congressional action needed to lower those barriers, the Congressional Research Service concluded in a new report.
The Department of Justice earlier this year proposed rescheduling marijuana from a strictly controlled Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug, which would expand the availability of cannabis for medicinal purposes. The Drug Enforcement Administration has scheduled a Dec. 2 hearing on the proposal.
The CRS researched the effect that rescheduling could have on financial services to state-sanctioned marijuana businesses, concluding it would likely be minimal, absent additional legislative and regulatory action. Rescheduling also would have no effect on state recreational marijuana laws because recreational marijuana activities would remain unlawful under federal law.
The CRS noted that the House and Senate have considered legislation to reduce the legal risks to financial institutions. One such bill is the SAFER Banking Act, which would constrain federal banking regulators’ ability to penalize depository institutions for providing services to marijuana businesses that comply with state laws. “If enacted, these bills would be more likely than rescheduling marijuana to reduce the legal risks associated with providing financial services and, by extension, could bolster the marijuana industry’s access to such services,” the report said.
