Colorado looking into pot-banking co-ops
Quick ReadColorado lawmakers are seeking to create the nation's first state cooperative financial institution for dispensaries and growers to allow them to bank and borrow money.
Photo credit: AP | Matthew Huron, owner of two medical marijuana dispensaries and an edible marijuana company in Denver, works in his grow house. Colorado is trying to establish banking cooperatives for medical marijuana growers. (Feb. 10, 2012)
Medical marijuana is legal in 17 states, but the industry has a decidedly black-market aspect -- it's mostly cash-only.
Banks won't touch pot money. The drug is illegal under federal law, and processing transactions or investments with pot money puts federally insured banks at risk of drug-racketeering charges.
In Colorado, state lawmakers are attempting an end-run around the federal...
