Also, because of federal banking regulations, it has been difficult for businesses that grow and/or sell cannabis to get a bank account, which creates a problem when it comes to paying employees. For a while, the Obama Administration relaxed enforcement of those rules when it came to legal marijuana businesses, but there are signs the current Attorney General Jeff Sessions intends to crack down on legal marijuana.
Despite that, he may be going against an incredibly fast-moving electoral train. There are signs the blanket federal prohibition on marijuana sales might be coming to an end. One sign is that Cory Booker, the Senator from New Jersey, yesterday introduced the Marijuana Justice Act of 2017. If passed into law, it would take marijuana out of Schedule I, which would allow states to regulate it themselves. The bill would also punish those states that continue to incarcerate people for marijuana possession and sale. It would also deny federal funding to states with disproportionate arrest and incarceration rates for marijuana-related offenses. Entities would also be entitled to sue those states with disproportionate incarceration rate.
