An illegal state-run bank. What could be better?
Nikki Fried, fellow Democratic candidates call for a state-run bank to manage medical cannabis funds - Orlando Weekly
Excerpt: Agriculture Commissioner candidate Nikki Fried, Chief Financial Officer candidate Jeremy Ring and state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith joined forces to call for a state-run bank to handle medical cannabis finances Tuesday. Their argument: A Florida-run bank would serve as a depository for growers, license holders, patients, and doctors, and it would protect banks that are handling money linked to the marijuana industry in the process. It would also allow the cannabis industry to grow and open the market.
Bottom Line: Removing the pesky detail about this type of a bank being illegal for a moment, I’ll come back to that point, what could be better than a government-run bank right? If you love Citizens, you’re sure to love Weed Bank & Trust of Tallahassee or some such thing. After all, no one handles money better than governments. But here’s the best part of this mess. The reason Fried and Co., want Wacky Weed banking in Florida is because it’s illegal to use the banking industry for money laundering. The reason that its money laundering is because marijuana is federally illegal. Florida’s still, at least in theory, one of the 50 states, it’s illegal here too. Back to square one.
Rather than doing the only responsible thing, which is to push for federal legalization or at least decriminalization, instead, how about creating an illegal state-run bank? Yeah, that makes perfect sense! I feel like I live in an alternate universe where the exact opposite of what’s right and rational takes place. What’s better is when you have an officer of the court proposing this state-run money laundering ring. There’s a right and a wrong way of doing things. When the premise of anything is false, anything built on it will fail as well. The premise of legal marijuana in Florida is false because it’s still federally illegal and this is the kind of poo that comes out of that kind of false premise. By the way, when did Florida’s political candidates become the most radically left in the country? That’s rhetorical.
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