Request denied to build Colorado marijuana bank

Capelli D'Angelo

Organization of the Federal Reserve System
Organization of the Federal Reserve System (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Federal Reserve rejected Colorado’s attempt to create a bank for the marijuana market, according to an article published on NBC News. Wednesday they announced that as long as the drug is still federally illegal, they will not do business with companies in the cannabis industry.

Although the bank would not actually be selling illegal inventory, they claim, “transporting or transmitting funds known to have derived from the distribution of marijuana is illegal.”

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The director of marijuana coordination under Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Andrew Freedman, said this leaves the industry with a lot of unanswered questions. Most of which will not be answered until the federal government acknowledges the evolution of state-based marijuana laws.

“We’re frustrated,” Freedman said. “We tried to do the most with the building blocks of instructions they sent us, set up the most rigorous solution. And we still are left with confusion.”

To learn more about the case Colorado presented to the Federal Reserve, check out the full story.