Marijuana banking legislation will not be included in the final version of the United States Innovation and Competition Act (a/k/a The America COMPETES Act), bipartisan congressional members concluded, Punchbowl News reported last week.
Even though the U.S. House of Representatives formally attached the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act as an amendment to large-scale legislation dealing with innovation and manufacturing in February, the Senate’s final version of the legislation did not include that provision.
Many industry experts believed that SAFE Banking Act, which aims to protect financial institutions that wish to provide their services to state-legal marijuana businesses, had a better chance of passing the Senate than the MORE Act, which would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances list and allow states to legalize its production and sale free from federal interference. The Senate, however turned the measure down for the sixth time.
To read more, click on Benzinga