On Thursday, October 28th, 2021, the The US Cannabis Council hosted a virtual briefing entitled “UNSAFE Banking & Cannabis: The Real-Life Impact on Public Safety and Social Equity”, where speakers divided First-hand accounts of the public safety and social justice challenges of lack of access to banks.

deviations between federal and state law discourage banks from serving the highly profitable and legal cannabis industry.

The Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, which would allow financial institutions to service legal cannabis businesses, passed the US house for the fifth time last September. Legislation has yet to make headway in the Senate, but UNSAFE Banking & Cannabis panelists agreed that the law would remove barriers to entry that have been preventing smaller and minority-owned businesses from growing, and some public safety would eliminate concerns associated with an all-cash industry, reported Cannabis Business Hours.

Effects of not having access to banks

Precious Osagie Erese, Co-founder and CEO of Roll Up Life – a company dedicated to the transportation of high-quality cannabis and related products – argued that the lack of bank access hurts smaller and minority-owned businesses.

Osagie-Erese pointed out that grassroots entrepreneurs with little access to capital have to work hard to keep up with basic services like accounting, cash flow and activities like raising capital.

Roll Up Life and other social equity entrepreneurs are often pigeonholed into taking “predatory deals” because they don’t have access to credit, Osagie-Erese said. Seun Adedeji, CEO of Elev8an exclusive pharmacy operating in Oregon and Massachusetts agreed with the Roll Up Life co-founder.

In the meantime, Leo Bridgewater, founder of Bridge H20 and director of veteran work at Minorities for medical marijuana (M4MM) – a non-profit organization focused on providing advocacy, research and education for cannabis companies – pointed out that while cannabis…