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Defund MasterCard — and any other financial institution who refuses to do business with a lawfully operating business.
by mikece 3y ago
Defund MasterCard — and any other financial institution who refuses to do business with a lawfully operating business.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoStill brand new, but alternate real time rails are available [1] [2]. I know that finding banking in the cannabis space can be...challenging. Hopefully policy gets fixed soon [3]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 (FedNow Is Live) [2] https://www.axios.com/2023/07/20/federal-reserve-fednow-payment https://www.axios.com/2023/07/20/federal-reserve-fednow-paym... [3] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1996 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1996
- latchkey 3y agoTo be fair, this is just debt cards. While I don't approve of them blocking this at all, I am guessing there was also a bit of fraud involved, even with the pin numbers. On a more personal level, I'm not sure why people would use anything other than cash to buy weed... who wants these companies tracking you anyway. Update: The comments below prompted me to look a bit further into my fraud speculation... quick google search found this: https://digboston.com/no-more-atms-is-the-smell-of-money-coming-to-a-weed-store-near-you/ https://digboston.com/no-more-atms-is-the-smell-of-money-com... Cash back is a laundering problem.
- ribosometronome 3y agoNothing in the article indicates Mastercard's concern is fraud nor does it sound like it came to their notice by way of fraud.
- nocoiner 3y agoThanks for the link. I was scratching my head trying to figure out the evident disparate treatment (Why not Visa? Why not credit cards?) but that explained a lot.
- crooked-v 3y agoThe basic problem here is that it's not 'lawful', it's just mostly quietly ignored by the feds because people would riot if they actively did much about it. It's hardly surprising that big financial companies would want to be completely disassociated from the situation.
- Simulacra 3y agoI disagree. You can buy marijuana openly in a very nice brick and mortar store less than six blocks from the White House, and 8 blocks from United States Capitol. It's openly advertised. This is just a government trying to maintain control.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoThat might be true but it is still illegal federally- so it's not "lawful".
- techdragon 3y agoAn un-enforced felony is still a federal crime, you just know your not going to get in trouble for it… The thing is MasterCard and Visa as part of being allowed by various laws, are not allowed to facilitate people making money from committing federal crimes… which the businesses selling (state) legal cannabis are doing. It’s pretty simple. They either need federal legislation to say it’s ok for them to be doing this, or it needs to stop being a federal crime, otherwise they are legally required to do exactly what they are doing. By your right about it being government control stuff, psychological resistance to letting go of the War on Drugs is pretty high, and unless it changes it’s going to remain in the current status quo until enough of them get too old to hold their seats in the House/Senate and new people with less fossilised opinions get to vote on legislation regarding the topic.
- flangola7 3y agoThe law exists in its enforcement. Many laws on paper do not exist. Many laws that are not on paper do exist.
- resolutebat 3y agoWell, that's the whole problem, from the feds' point of view they are not operating lawfully. I'm no fan of the Visa/MC duopoly but from a legal point of view they don't really have a choice here.
- deadfoxygrandpa 3y agocannabis shops are illegal everywhere in the united states, though. federal law supersedes state law
- Simulacra 3y agoTry explaining that to the literally hundreds of marijuana shops, even in Maryland, and the District of Columbia openly selling..
- deadfoxygrandpa 3y agotheyre running the risk of getting into serious legal trouble with the feds. which mastercard apparently doesnt want to do
- mikece 3y agoShow me in the Constitution where FedGov has the authority to dictate drug law or policy that doesn’t cross State Lines. (Spoiler: it’s not there.)
- lxgr 3y agoNot a lawyer, but I’d strongly suspect that funds flows crossing state lines and using Federal Reserve wire transfers for settlement would make Fed jurisdiction quite possible.
- mikece 3y agoMight surprise you to learn there is precedent to refute that. Flow of money isn’t material to the law: flow of good and staying within State boundaries is the point.
- semiquaver 3y agoWhat precedent? Wickard v. Filburn (1942) pretty much blew away any limitation on the federal government’s use of the commerce clause. In that case even a farmer’s subsistence crop of wheat for personal use was found to be in violation of a federal wheat quota because such activity in aggregate could hypothetically affect national prices. If that can be regulated as interstate commerce surely all cannabis production and consumption can as well.
- jojobas 3y agoDo you mean wikileaks, kiwifarms or pornhub?
- jesterson 3y agoYou probably never dealt with payment processing - otherwise you'd know nearly all payment processing reject and close account of perfectly fine legally operating businesses. And very often without any explanations. Sometimes even without releasing acquired funds, like the last street robber (looking at paypal). Let aside saying that whole industry is drowning in endless useless KYCs, often requiring documents on your grand grand mother, may gods treat her soul well. I can go on and on, but that's the gist of it.