Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) says that a standalone marijuana banking reform bill “requires changes” if it’s going to advance before cannabis is federally legalized.
The senator, who is one of the three prime sponsors of a recently filed measure to comprehensively end prohibition, didn’t get into the specifics of what revisions he wants to see made to the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act—but he said in a statement on Wednesday that industry equity for communities harmed by the drug war must be a priority.
While Booker has made several recent comments about his openness to moving more incremental cannabis legislation, including protections for banks that work with state-legal marijuana businesses despite previously saying he would block the financial reform, his latest remarks come amid a push by current and former cannabis regulators to make a series of equity-centric amendments to the standalone bill.
“For decades, largely Black and Brown communities have been disproportionately harmed by the prohibition of marijuana and are subsequently underrepresented in the emerging billion-dollar cannabis industry,” he said in a press release that coincided with an event hosted by Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC), which released a paper this week on the need for
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