Support HR 2076 – Marijuana Businesses Access to Banking Act of 2015

This is a topic of special importance to us, and probably to most of you who end up on our site, or the many others like ours out there on the internet. Not only are we distributors of great news stories involving the hemp/cannabis plant, we are also distributors of the finest CBD Hemp Oil products on the internet.

We scour the interwebz to find new and exciting products that are both safe and effective, and those products will ultimately fall into your hands. There is a process that must occur for that to happen.

How We Conduct Business Online

Our interaction online is very simple, and can be broken down into just a few sentences:

First, you have to be able to find us, and we do our best to get our site out there into the digital world to make it easy for you to find us. Then, as touched upon above, we have to have something that you would like to have in your life. Perhaps you are looking to make a healthy body even healthier. Perhaps you have an issue that you have researched with your physician that our products may be of help with.

Once you find those products and added them to your cart, this is where the magic occurs. At this stage, there is an exchange. You put up digital currency; we send physical goods. Then, you get a confirmation email, and soon after that you receive tracking information for your package. The package shows up, and all is well.

The Conundrum

The unfortunate thing with the current banking system today is that it is very hostile to businesses like ours. In fact, our business, even though our products are 50 state legal imported hemp food products, is grouped into the ‘marijuana’ industry. And this hostility is making this simple task of getting you the highest quality products very difficult, at best.

Though this particular site has been up for nearly one year, we have been doing business in the hemp CBD world for over 2 years now with great success. We have battled credit card processing companies over closing our accounts, and we are doing it for the 4th time in one year. And all of this is due to the unfounded stigma of the cannabis plant.

Without the ability to process credit cards, our business would be limited to the use of wire transfers (which we have set up preemptively on the site) and cryptocurrencies like BitCoin, which we do currently accept. With the vast majority of transactions done on debit and credit cards, this will ultimately end up hurting our customers in the long and short term by preventing them from accessing these wonderful CBD products. And we as an industry are growing extremely irritated with the hatred and ignorance coming from those unelected bureaucrats imposing their will AGAINST the will of the people.

We are also subjected to enormous scrutiny; far more than virtually every single industry, as is noted in the summary of the bill below.

Support HR 2076- Marijuana Businesses Access to Banking Act of 2015

In order for us to be able to support you as our customer, we must be treated equally as the other industries out there, and this is where we need your support. Please contact your congressman/congresswoman for your district (http://www.house.gov/representatives/) and tell them to vote yes for HR 2076.

This bill was introduced into the House on 4/28/2015 by Rep. Perlmutter, Ed [D-CO-7]. The following is the bill’s summary:

Marijuana Businesses Access to Banking Act of 2015

This bill provides a safe harbor for depository institutions providing financial services to a marijuana-related legitimate business insofar as it prohibits a federal banking regulator from: (1) terminating or limiting the deposit or share insurance of a depository institution solely because it provides financial services to a marijuana-related legitimate business; or (2) prohibiting, penalizing, or otherwise discouraging a depository institution from offering such services.

A federal banking regulator may neither recommend, motivate, provide incentives, nor encourage a depository institution to refuse to offer financial services to an individual, nor downgrade or cancel financial services offered to an individual, solely because the individual: (1) is a manufacturer, producer, owner or operator of a marijuana-related legitimate business; or (2) the depository institution was not aware that the individual is the owner or operator of a marijuana-related legitimate business.

A federal banking regulator may not take any adverse or corrective supervisory action, solely because of the business involved, on a loan made to an owner or operator of: (1) a marijuana-related legitimate business, or (2) real estate or equipment that is leased to a marijuana-related legitimate business.

Immunity from federal criminal prosecution or investigation is granted, subject to certain conditions, to a depository institution that provides financial services to a marijuana-related legitimate business in a state or one of its political subdivisions that allows the cultivation, production, manufacture, sale, transportation, display, dispensing, distribution, or purchase of marijuana. Neither the depository institution nor its officers, directors, nor employees may be held liable under federal law or regulation solely for providing such financial services or further investing income derived from those services.

The Department of the Treasury must require any suspicious activity report filed by a financial institution regarding a marijuana-based business to comply with specified guidance of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Please get a hold of your congress-person today and let’s get this bill to the floor and onto the books!

House of Representatives Directory: http://www.house.gov/representatives/
HR 2076 Full Text – PDF