Marijuana Moment: Marijuana Businesses Could List On US Stock Exchanges Like Nasdaq And NYSE Under New Bipartisan Congressional Bill

[Tokeativity]

Marijuana businesses would be able to list on national stock exchanges such as Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under a bipartisan congressional bill filed on Wednesday that would also more broadly shield companies from being punished for providing financial, accounting, insurance, advertising or other services to the cannabis industry.

Reps. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) and Troy Carter (D-LA) are again sponsoring the Capital Lending and Investment for Marijuana Businesses (CLIMB) Act—a piece of incremental cannabis reform that would resolve an issue that’s long frustrated stakeholders and comes as a federal marijuana rescheduling proposal remains pending.

The legislation is substantively the same as earlier versions of the CLIMB Act filed in the 117th Congress, with certain technical formatting changes, according to a discussion draft obtained by Marijuana Moment. The final bill text has not yet been posted.

A central function of the bill is to free up cannabis industry access to financial lending and investment opportunities, in part by providing protections for private financial institutions and government agencies that provide such services to traditional markets.

Another notable section would provide safe harbor for national securities exchanges and market participants that “have listed, list, or intend to list,” “permit the trading of” or “facilitate the offering, listing, or trading” of such cannabis-related securities.

In other words, cannabis businesses would be permitted to list on major stock exchanges, including Nasdaq and NYSE. That would represent a boon for the industry, legitimizing their presence on Wall Street even as marijuana remains federally illegal.

Overall, the legislation stipulates that federal agencies “may not take any adverse action against a person solely because the person provides business assistance to a cannabis-related legitimate business or service provider.”

The full list of activities that people and businesses could offer to the cannabis industry without being federally penalized includes:

“providing a financial product or service; selling insurance or surety products; providing debt or equity capital or receiving dividends, interest, or distributions of that capital; providing accounting services; the sale, lease, or rental of real estate; providing equipment, parts, substances, or testing services needed to produce cannabis in compliance with the laws and regulations in the applicable State; providing advertising or marketing services; providing management consulting services; providing legal services or compliance services; providing information technology, software, or communications services; provision of packaging, transportation, or other logistics services; and underwriting, dealing, placement or public distribution of securities issued by a cannabis-related legitimate business, including the listing of any such securities on any exchange or trading venue, or any provision of services related to the foregoing.”

This legislation takes a targeted approach to cannabis reform in the financial and regulatory sector, whereas another bipartisan bill that advocates and stakeholders have pushed for—the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act—would more broadly safeguard financial institutions that work with marijuana businesses from being penalized by federal regulators.

The SAFER Banking Act has not yet been refiled in the current 119th Congress, however.

Stakeholders are also awaiting administrative action on a proposal to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), which President Donald Trump in December directed the attorney general to quickly finalize. That hasn’t happened yet, but if it does, one effect would be allowing state-licensed cannabis businesses to take federal tax deductions under Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code 280E.

The CLIMB Act, meanwhile, did not advance in its prior form after being filed in 2022. It remains to be seen whether there will be sufficient bipartisan interest in moving it this session. Some advocates have previously voiced concerns about the idea of advancing reform that heavily favors industry players while marijuana remains federally prohibited and people are still experiencing the collateral consequences of criminalization that the bipartisan bill doesn’t attempt to directly address.

Meanwhile, another bipartisan bill that was recently filed in the House by Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL) and Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA) would repeal a decades-old federal statute that’s led to the denial of housing for millions of people with prior drug convictions.

Read the text of the CLIMB Act below:

The post Marijuana Businesses Could List On US Stock Exchanges Like Nasdaq And NYSE Under New Bipartisan Congressional Bill appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net