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by micromacrofoot 1710 days ago
That's not true at all. I live in the northeast and my dispensary simply can not take credit cards even if they wanted to; credit card companies are liable for the transaction and they don't want to run up against federal law.

Some dispensaries can take debit card transactions, and they have to do so through "high risk" processors... companies like Square will not work with them because of federal law.

2 comments

Its hyper regional. And when processing solutions are found, they may be gone the next month. You see a similar situation with groups like Eaze in the SFBA. Some months they just don't have a debit option, some months they do.
>credit card companies are liable for the transaction and they don't want to run up against federal law.

This. And while it's obviously not the same thing at all, since cannabis is a schedule 1[0] substance, the US government could treat processing credit card transactions for cannabis companies the same as they treated HSBC[1] or worse.

As such, until cannabis is moved off of schedule 1, Congress acts to make cannabis legal at the federal level, and/or the US Department of Justice makes it clear that providing banking services to cannabis companies will not be prosecuted under money laundering laws, US banks won't jump into the pool.

[0] https://www.dea.gov/drug-information/drug-scheduling

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2013/investing-n...