Support For Marijuana Law Reform Creates Strange Bedfellows

By Lorne Matalon
January 24, 2014

In states where the trade is legal, recreational marijuana sellers are lobbying for the right to obtain loans and make bank deposits rather than wrestle with the security risk of a cash-only enterprise.

Now U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says pot sellers will get relief.

Although he did not specify a timeframe, Holder told an audience at the University of Virginia on Thursday that the Obama administration will soon issue rules to regulate the interaction of the nation's banking system with marijuana stores and medical dispensaries.

Holder's remarks in Virginia mirror those made by his deputy, James Cole, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill last year.

"You don't want just huge amounts of cash in these places," Holder told university audience. "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."


On Jan. 1, Colorado became the first state to open stores legally permitted to sell marijuana to adults for recreational use.

Washington state is scheduled to open its own marijuana retail later this year, and several other states, including Alaska, California and Oregon are set to consider legalizing recreational marijuana this year.

The number of states approving marijuana for medical purposes has also risen. California was the first in 1996 and has been followed by 20 other states and the District of Columbia.

In a separate but related development, Texas Gov. Rick Perry sent a message through his spokeswoman that he’s willing to consider the decriminalization — though not legalization — of marijuana and reducing the punishment for pot users.

At a panel discussing the implications of legalizing pot at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Perry said, "I have begun to implement policies that start us toward a decriminalization” by introducing drug courts that afford treatment and softer penalties for minor offenses.

In Texas, people caught with less than two ounces of marijuana can be sentenced to up to six months in jail. Anyone caught with more than five pounds faces up to two years in jail.

Drug courts in Texas provide supervision and intense rehabilitation for some convicted drug users rather than time in jail. The concept was introduced and passed in 2001 by a group of Democratic state legislators.