Thor Benson / Cannabis News Box Contributor

Everyone in the cannabis industry knows one of the biggest problems for businesses is not having access to banking.

Though it is legal for banks to do business with cannabis companies, these banks are federally regulated, and since cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, they largely don’t want to take the risk. Because of this, Illinois lawmakers are now pushing to make it easier for banks to work with cannabis companies.

“There are a lot of banks out there that want to be in this industry, they want to bank, but their board of directors have concerns,” Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs said recently. “Each little thing we can do, like passing state legislation, helps allay some of those concerns.”

The Chicago Tribune reports that bills in the state’s House and its Senate would “protect state-chartered banks that do business with cannabis companies.”

Dan Linn, executive director of Illinois’ NORML office, told Cannabis News Box that in Illinois most medical cannabis companies do work with banks but some of them have been unable to get banking access. He said one major bank decided to stop working with cannabis companies not long ago.

“Most of the IL licensees have banks, however, there are a few that still don’t,” Linn said. “One of the banks that did have accounts with most of the industry closed all their cannabis accounts, so that sent those licensees scrambling, but at least one bank picked up most of those accounts from what I can gather.”

Linn said he expects cannabis banking to be addressed at the federal level within the next year or two, and he said Illinois may fully legalize cannabis within that timeframe. Linn said Illinois “likely will have full legalization in the next year or two as well but what exactly that looks like is still to be determined.”

According to Linn, the opposition to legalization is not very strong in Illinois and it consists of the usual suspects, like Big Pharma and police groups

“Only from the folks who have always opposed any type of reforms to our drug laws like the law enforcement community, drug testing industry, abstinence-based groups, and some religious organizations,” Linn said.

Illinois taking on cannabis banking is an important step for the state, but it’s clear something will have to be done at the federal level to really solve this issue. Perhaps with presidential candidates discussing legalization, Congress will be pressured to act.