Despite its emergence as a multibillion-dollar business, marijuana's overall murky legal status in the U.S. has prompted banks to shun many dispensaries, dooming them to cash-only transactions that have made the stores an increasingly frequent target for criminals.
Although marijuana has been legalized in 23 states, along with Washington, D.C., and the U.S. territory of Guam, it remains an illegal drug under federal law. Accordingly, banks have been reticent to do business with dispensaries because "state-legal marijuana operations could still be considered money laundering and expose a bank to significant legal, operational, and regulatory risk," according to an analysis by business law firm McGlinchey Stafford PLLC.
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