Nearly two-thirds of voters support allowing cannabis-related businesses to access banking services in states with legal cannabis use, according to a recent Independent Community Bankers Association poll conducted by Morning Consult.
The SAFE Banking Act would prohibit federal regulators from disciplining depository institutions that provide banking services to government-licensed cannabis-related businesses.
The ICBA poll found that 71 percent of voters said that allowing CRBs to access the banking system would reduce robbery and assaults. Sixty-two percent said that restricting CRBs from accessing the bank system poses a threat to public safety, and 63 percent said that allowing CRBs to access the banking system will improve public safety.
The House of Representatives included the SAFE Act in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act it passed in July for the seventh time within the last decade, but Senate approval has been elusive. The ICBA supports the legislation and has testified on its behalf.
“U.S. voters have made clear that current law inhibiting access to the banking system for cannabis-related businesses has a negative impact on local communities,” said ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey. “With a supermajority of U.S. voters voicing support for allowing cannabis-related businesses access to the banking system, the Senate should act now on bipartisan cannabis banking legislation that the House has passed seven times.”
The American Bankers Association has also expressed support for the act and called on the Senate to take up the legislation, calling it “an urgently needed, and widely supported, bipartisan legislative solution to allow banks to handle the proceeds from state-licensed cannabis businesses.”