Marijuana Businesses Tell GOP Senate Committee About Struggles Accessing Financial Services Ahead Of Debanking Hearing

The marijuana industry is hoping to make its voice heard at an upcoming Senate committee hearing focused on debanking, with stakeholders sharing stories about their experiences losing financial services simply for working in and around state-legal cannabis markets.

Ahead of the Senate Banking Committee hearing that’s scheduled for next Wednesday, February 5, the chair of the panel, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), encouraged anyone who’s been debanked to contact his staff with details to help inform the debate.

“I’m committed to ensuring Americans who have been debanked have their voices heard, and to prevent chokepoint activities from happening in the future,” the chairman said. “Working together, we can ensure bad actors who have exploited their power are held accountable.”

Scott didn’t specifically address the longstanding issues cannabis companies have faced securing banking services under federal prohibition—and the focus of the upcoming committee meeting seems to center largely on other industries that have alleged politically motivated debanking such as cryptocurrency companies and firearms dealers.

As Chairman of @BankingGOP, I’m committed to ensuring Americans who have been debanked have their voices heard, and to prevent chokepoint activities from happening in the future.

If you have been debanked, please reach out to my staff: https://t.co/0Su1MHECzO

— Tim Scott (@SenatorTimScott) January 24, 2025

The chairman is on the record opposing bipartisan cannabis banking reform legislation, and he stressed in a video that his concern with debanking incidents is focused on “legal” enterprises—which marijuana businesses are not, at least under federal law. But key players in the cannabis industry are still accepting his invitation to reach out share their stories by contacting a whistleblower hotline and email address.

“No other industry has experienced debanking like the cannabis industry,” David Culver, senior vice president of public affairs at the U.S. Cannabis Council (USCC), told Marijuana Moment on Monday. “Every major financial institution and exchange has shut us out, and our executives and employees routinely experience debanking in their personal lives—from shuttered accounts to denied mortgages and loans.”

“Ahead of next week’s hearing, our members are encouraging their employees to share their personal banking challenges with the committee,” he said. “We are also meeting with relevant offices on Capitol Hill to encourage senators to raise our industry’s challenges at the hearing. We are hopeful that a representative from our industry will be invited to testify.”

Don Murphy, a cannabis lobbyist and former GOP Maryland legislator who had his own accounts shut down due to his association with marijuana advocacy, told Marijuana Moment that his hope is that “front-line employees share their stories about being rejected for mortgages or even apartment rentals,” arguing that the message might resonate more effectively if those impacted workers make the case for reform.

I got de-banked, and I’m just a non-plant-touching #cannabis policy reform advocate. @AmericanCCo https://t.co/GOTn0uW8EL

— Don Murphy (@donmurphy12a) January 25, 2025

“Let’s make this about the Average Joe and not Mister Moneybags,” he said. “Nothing against the cannabis industry C-Suite, but I’d rather have half a million front-line cannabis employees blowing up the phones on Capitol Hill than a handful of suits on a fly-in day.”

A number of leaders in an around the cannabis industry are also sharing their stories in response to the committee’s request for infomation, at least on social media.

Thank you for hosting this @SenatorTimScott! I sent an email detailing the gratuitous debanking we have all faced personally and professionally. Simply trying to build an American industry, creating jobs, paying taxes and asking for the transparency of our existing banking… https://t.co/YFO1IDnqXB

— Emily Paxhia (@empax1) January 27, 2025

I’ve been de-banked 3 times because I take a paycheck from a state legal cannabis company. Let’s fix the problem and get this budding industry into the sunshine! https://t.co/RM2zgOi0Sm

— Brady Cobb (@BCobblaw) January 27, 2025

I was debanked in 2018 by JP Morgan Chase due to my account being linked to a business that actively invested in the cannabis industry.

I was given no warning from the bank. Just a simple “you’re accounts closed, come and get your money or it will be frozen. @SenatorTimScott https://t.co/MjrUcAEWCY

— Anthony Varrell (@V_arrell) January 26, 2025

I have been kicked out of Wells Fargo, Chase, BofA, and other financial institutions, pay higher interest % on my mortgage because I’m an executive at a publicly traded cannabis company w/ ~6 years of audited financials. Paid w-2 no cash, all taxes paid.
Pls Help #SAFEBanking https://t.co/qf9CWlYQBa

— Graham Farrar (@grahamfarrar) January 27, 2025

Meanwhile, the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act to address the underlying issue is expected to be filed again this session—but that introduction is “not imminent” as some recent reports have suggested, a spokesperson for the GOP House sponsor of the last version told Marijuana Moment last week.

“While introduction is not imminent, we hope to have a firmer update on timing within the coming weeks,” the staffer for Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) said.

With Republicans now in control of the House and Senate—and leadership having historically opposed even modest cannabis legislation, including the banking bill—there are open questions about the prospects of advancing marijuana reform this session.

However, some are holding out hope that a measure to allow cannabis industry banking access could move, especially given President Donald Trump’s endorsement of the proposal on the campaign trail.

Separately, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) announced last month that it’s convening focus groups comprised of marijuana businesses to better understand their experiences with access to banking services under federal prohibition.

The industry remains frustrated with the lack of progress on the cannabis banking issue under the last administration. Despite repeated pledges to prioritize the reform, the SAFER Banking Act only cleared the Senate Banking Committee in September 2023 and never made it to the floor.

A Senate source told Marijuana Moment last month that Republican House and Senate leadership “openly and solely blocked” then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) attempt to include the bill in a government funding bill as the session came to a close.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) had challenged the idea that there was enough GOP support for the SAFER Banking Act to pass on the Senate floor during the lame duck session.

Warren accused certain Republican members of overstating support for the legislation within their caucus, while also taking a hit at Trump for doing “nothing” on cannabis reform during his time in office as he makes a policy pivot ahead of the election by coming out in support of the marijuana banking bill and federal rescheduling.

Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) also recently argued in an interview with Marijuana Moment that the main barrier to getting the marijuana banking bill across the finish line is a lack of sufficient Republican support in the chamber. And he said if Trump is serious about seeing the reform he recently endorsed enacted, he needs to “bring us some Republican senators.”

Prior to becoming House speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) consistently opposed cannabis reform, including on incremental issues like cannabis banking and making it easier to conduct scientific research on the plant.

Meanwhile, on the one-year anniversary of a Senate committee’s passage of the SAFER Banking Act in September, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an analysis on the economic impact of the reform, including the likely increase in federally insured deposits from cannabis businesses by billions of dollars once banks receive protections for servicing the industry.

Separately, the CEO of the financial giant JPMorgan Chase said recently that the company “probably would” start providing banking services to marijuana businesses if federal law changed to permit it.

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Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.

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