As congressional marijuana banking reform remains in flux, facing a recent setback on its path to passage in the lame duck session, a new report is highlighting one of the key reasons supporters say the legislation is necessary: the status quo leaves cash-intensive cannabis dispensaries uniquely vulnerable to crime.
Also, while some have suggested that the businesses see more crime because burglars are after the marijuana product itself, the report from David Borden of StoptheDrugWar.org shows that cash it the primary target, with limited cases of people stealing only cannabis from the storefronts.
The analysis looks at data on marijuana business robberies and burglaries in Washington State from 2017 to 2022, compiled by the Seattle-based dispensary Uncle Ike’s as part of a novel tracking system. It not only quantifies the extent of the industry’s crime problem, but it also provides statistical and inferential information about what was stolen and the motivations behind the crimes.
Marijuana markets saw a surge in burglaries and robberies, some of them violent or deadly, late last year. Nearly 100 Washington shops were impacted over a period of less than five months, the report shows. And that trend led to amplified calls from advocates and lawmakers to pass the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, which is meant to allow cannabis businesses to access traditional financial institutions.
“Given what happened in Washington—which could happen again—it would be wholly unjustifiable for Congress to again put off enacting some form of the SAFE Banking Act,” Borden said in a press release.
While the legislation has passed the House in some form seven times, it is again getting caught up in the Senate. Just this week, advocates were disappointed to learn that SAFE Banking was omitted from a large-scale defense bill that they’d hoped would be used as the vehicle to enact the reform. Now lawmakers are looking at placing it in omnibus appropriations legislation as an alternative.
“Our analysis confirms that cash dominates as the target for cannabis store robberies,” an executive summary of the new report says. “Product also plays an important role, but almost always in combination with cash; whereas cash on its own gets targeted in roughly 50 percent of the time, during the incidents for which we could determine what was targeted. Most burglaries, by contrast, appear to only target product.”
