Why Pot Banking Legislation Might Not Have Much Impact
The chances that cannabis banking legislation will pass before the November election are dimming by the week, but the author of the Department of Justice’s 2014 guidance on pot banking says it may not matter anyway.
“For those banks that are on record as saying, ‘We will never bank this industry so long as it remains federally illegal,’ SAFE Banking doesn’t change a thing,” John Vardaman, former head of policy at the DoJ’s money laundering section, said in an interview. “At this point, there’s only so much more than can be done short of legalization.”