Sen. Cory Booker Gets An Earful About Need For Cannabis Banking And Dumping Hemp Felony Ban

Minorities for Medical Marijuana, the largest community-based nonprofit in the cannabis and hemp industry, spent 4/20 week walking the halls of Congress for their annual Lobby Days. The event culminated with a Judiciary Committee Markup where a large faction of the organization assembled to address Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ). 

While the group thanked Booker for his support, they urged him to help bring relief to the industry by passing the SAFE Banking Act, including a provision for better access to the capital markets.

“We’ve been doing this for seven years now and so this is the time for us really, we have just got to see some incremental changes. Access to capital is the biggest issue. SAFE Banking is going to do that from the Depository, but if we can also look at having safe havens for institutional investors and capital markets that could be the opportunity because not only do I run this nonprofit, but I’m a business owner and getting access to capital right now. It is impossible almost,“ said Roz McCarthy, founder of Minorities for Medical Marijuana (M4MM) and owner of Black Buddha Cannabis, which partnered with TILT Holdings TLLTF last October.

McCarthy was a panelist at the recent Benzinga Cannabis Capital Conference in Miami where she spoke on the topic of Funding an Inclusive Cannabis Future.

Sen. Booker acknowledged the struggle to ensure that Black, Brown and non-traditional entrepreneurs, especially those impacted by the war on marijuana, have economic opportunities.

“We’ve got a good deal, we had one last Congress and it got stomped at the one-yard line, it was almost there, and we are working to resurrect it now. And working to get it over the line this Congress because as I said to my team if we have to wait another two years, it literally means that 100s of businesses go out of business,” said Booker, who recently called for expungements to address cannabis inequality.

The group also urged Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) to focus on new hemp provisions that could be added to the upcoming Farm Bill to help those affected by the War on Drugs to gain better access to the hemp sector.

“We want to see the Farm Bill have more language in there that is going to support felons that want to get into the industry and also being able to make it expansive for Black farmers. We know they have had a hard time in other sectors, this is it, hemp is where it is, hemp is a future crop,” McCarthy said.

Booker admitted that the hemp felony ban was news to him, but agreed to do something about it.

“But it’s not new to my team, I know they support it, but I didn’t know about the felony ban there, so let’s figure out what we can do,” Booker said.

Photo courtesy of M4MM.