Colorado... Last Bank shutting out marijuana dispensaries

Colorado Springs State Bank, the last bank in the state willing to do business openly with medical marijuana suppliers, has asked them to close their accounts.


Senior Vice President John Whitten said the bank's parent company, Herring Bank, does business in Oklahoma and Texas, both states where medical marijuana is not legal, The (Boulder) Daily Camera reported.

"There are unresolved issues with regulations, law enforcement and other agencies that need to get resolved before the industry can progress and become bankable," Whitten said.

A letter last week to operators of medical marijuana dispensaries asked them to shut down their accounts by the end of September, Whitten said.

(source)

Rhode Island Medical Society is Pleading with Governor Chafee...Open the Colletives!

The Rhode Island Medical Society, an early supporter of the state’s medical-marijuana program, is urging Governor Chafee to issue operating licenses to the three marijuana dispensaries that the Health Department selected in the spring.

Dr. Gary Bubly, society president, sent the four-paragraph letter to Chafee and Michael Fine, director of the state Health Department, and said that the establishment of medical cannabis dispensaries, also known as compassion centers, is critical to providing “a source of mechanism for cannabis patients to obtain their marijuana in a safe and legal manner.”

“It requires appropriate security and oversight allowing patients to obtain their marijuana in a controlled environment,” he wrote. “Further delay in implementing this law only serves to deny relief to patients suffering from the qualifying medical conditions.”

(source)