Thor Benson / Cannabis News Box Contributor

California is moving forward with a plan to start a state-owned bank that would serve cannabis businesses that need access to banking. This could do a lot to help the cannabis industry in the state, and it seems like other states may follow California’s lead. As it stands, cannabis businesses are forced to operate with cash because banks won’t do business with them, which is dangerous and highly complicated.

“The banking problem is multi-faceted,” Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, told Cannabis News Box. “Depending on how it is implemented the state bank could be a really important tool for cannabis business owners. At the very least, we are hopeful that the state charter will help reduce the safety issues of being forced to do business in all cash. That said, we do not expect the bank to be a panacea.”

According to the current proposal, cannabis businesses would be allowed to use the bank to pay rent, pay vendors, pay taxes and purchase state bonds.

“The status quo for our growing legal cannabis industry is unsustainable,” Sen. Bob Hertzberg said in a statement. “It’s not only impractical from an accounting perspective, but it also presents a tremendous public safety problem. This bill takes a limited approach to provide all parties with a safe and reliable way to move forward on this urgent issue. ”

Allen said this effort was spearheaded by State Treasurer John Chiang, and he is leading another effort to get other states to follow California’s example. We could see state banks popping up all over the country in states that have legalized cannabis. Allen said the best thing the federal government could do to help cannabis businesses is to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act.

“The state government is doing a relatively good job but local governments are lagging behind,” Allen said. “Growers, business owners, patients and consumers in most of the cities and counties in our state are still living under regressive and highly restrictive policies. We have a lot more work to do before cannabis is legal in all of California.”

While cannabis remains illegal under federal law, state lawmakers will be forced to continue fixing large issues that cannabis business owners face because of prohibition. It seems legalizing cannabis nationwide is always the one solution needed to fix all of these significant problems.