US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer believes Congress is “very close” to introducing and passing the SAFE Bill that would open banks to legal cannabis businesses. The text also provides for the erasure of previous convictions in connection with cannabis.
The text has already been voted on 7 times by the House of Representatives but has always blocked in the Senate.
“We’re getting a lot closer to that,” Schumer said in an online debate. “I’m working bipartisanly with Democrats and Republicans to pass the SAFE Banking Act, which allows financial institutions to get involved in cannabis businesses and lend them money — but also to do certain things for the justice, like the erasing of a record. »
The plan, according to several lawmakers, is to table a modest cannabis reform package in the indefinite period following this week’s midterm elections, push it through both houses, and send it out. on the President’s desk before the end of the current Congress.
The SAFE bill, which Schumer is working to finalize with input from both parties and both houses, does not include provisions to legalize cannabis at the federal level.
US lawmakers have signaled that the SAFE legislation has been amended and will now contain protections for banks working with legal cannabis businesses like the original text intended but also other more modest proposals aimed at providing access medical cannabis for military veterans, to promote research and more.
