Cannabis banking reform is almost here. What happens next?

DAILY SHOW INTRO: From Comedy Central’s News Headquarters in New York, this is the Daily Show — with Trevor Noah.

BRENDAN PEDERSEN: Do you remember how this country used to talk about weed? Specifically how paid communications professionals used to talk about it? And I’m not talking about gateway drug paranoia or urban violence or the fear of an entire generation being glued to the couch. I mean the jokes. Here’s a montage courtesy of the Daily Show from 2017. Apologies in advance.

TREVOR NOAH: Today’s basically National Weed Day, and you know what I noticed? Your news anchors in America, they smoke a (bleep) ton of weed. [LOCAL NEWSCASTER MONTAGE: It’s a high holiday… [screeching] 420!! woo!! … it’s a high — get it? — holiday… happy national high day… get one before it goes up in a ‘puff of smoke’ … national high… five day, gotcha! ha ha ha] NOAH: All right, those people have never smoked weed.

PEDERSEN: Cannabis occupies a very weird place in American culture. Cannabis — or, more accurately, hemp — was cultivated in the U.S. for centuries, but was effectively criminalized in the 1930s. Then in the 1970s, the Nixon administration launched what was to become the War on Drugs, listing cannabis among the federal government’s most dangerous controlled substances, right next door to heroin and an entire level above cocaine. In the decade between 2001 and 2010, we arrested 7 million people just for having weed on them, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. And yet, at the exact same time, cannabis and the people who consume it have been one of America’s favorite, most reliable punchlines. Listen to Halle Berry deal with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show in 2012.

TONIGHT SHOW WITH JAY LENO: Now I also heard this week that you smoked pot with Tom Hanks. What is that? I want to know what this is. The All American boy …

HALLE BERRY: You’ve never smoked pot?

LENO: No, I’m not …

BERRY: Have you ever, ever smoked …

LENO: No no no…

BERRY: And you never smoked and rode?

LENO: No, no. I’m not a pot smoker. I like cupcakes.

PEDERSEN: That was 10 years ago. Now, here’s Jimmy Kimmel on cannabis in April 2022.

JIMMY KIMMEL:  Thanks for watching, for joining us. A high holiday if ever there was one, it’s 4/20. 

PEDERSEN: OK, some jokes don’t die.

KIMMEL: Now that cannabis is out in the open — it used to be that you couldn’t even talk about it, unless you were talking about how bad, what a menace it was, but now, it’s so accepted … According to a new poll from CBS News, a vast majority of Americans want the federal government to legalize cannabis for recreational purposes. 66% are in favor, 34% say no. .. We did an experiment involving Guillermo today — I don’t know if you noticed that something’s a little different today about him.

GUILLERMO: It was a good experience.

KIMMEL: What’d you smoke, like a whole pillow case?

GUILLERMO: It was almost a joint, man.

KIMMEL: So to demonstrate the effects that this has on the human brain, I thought it’d be fun to ask some questions before he smoked and after — kind of like a pot quiz.

PEDERSEN: You get the idea. Americans as a whole have completely reoriented their relationship to cannabis in a remarkably brief timeframe. As of 2020, one in three Americans have recreational access to cannabis, and two in three could acquire it legally with a medical prescription. Cannabis is also a big and growing industry, valued at roughly $13.2 billion last year.

How about this as an illustration: In 2009, one of the biggest stories in sports journalism broke when Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps was photographed holding a pipe with weed in it, leading to a loss of sponsors and a suspension from competition. In 2022, Phelps will be giving a keynote speech at the American Bankers Association’s annual convention later this summer.

Cannabis today is the definition of mainstream. But cannabis banking? Well, we might as well have stuck around with Jay Leno in 2012. So if the culture seems to have moved on from cannabis prohibition, why are banks still kept on the sidelines of this increasingly legal and lucrative business? [Read More @ The American Banker]

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