OPINION:
Cannabis regulation isn’t obvious as a Republican strength. But it should be. So should backing federal legislation would finally permit commercial banks to have cannabis companies as customers.
As a Colorado state senator nearly a decade ago, I changed my mind on the subject, and I’m glad I did. I learned that life-changing, symptom-curing medicine can be made from cannabis. If you had asked me before 2015, I would have dismissed medical marijuana as an excuse to get high. I came to understand that I was wrong.
I met a woman and her son who had practiced self-mutilation until cannabis-based medicines helped him end the practice. I learned from the parents of a son with epilepsy son the freedom they enjoyed from their son being seizure-free.
Whether by God’s will or by chance, I became one of the first elected Republicans in the nation to wrestle with the complexities of taxing and regulating a state-level medical and recreational marijuana industry. We certainly didn’t get everything right the first time, but we learned valuable lessons along the way.
In 2002, Colorado voters approved a medical marijuana amendment to their state constitution. The amendment passed with 54% of the vote. I voted against the measure, as did the majority of voters in my community.
Ten years later, Colorado voters approved a separate amendment to their state constitution that legalized recreational marijuana and required that it be regulated like alcohol. That amendment passed with 55% of the vote and became effective Jan. 1, 2014. I voted against that measure, as did the majority of voters in my community.
I ran successfully for the Colorado Senate in 2014 after serving four years in the House. Republicans won majority control of the Senate that year. Thus, we were challenged to support a state constitution to which we had sworn an oath to uphold, even though it contained those two amendments that most of us had opposed.
Rather than ignore the state constitution and the will of a majority of voters, caucus leadership encouraged me to regulate the Colorado cannabis industry by applying the Republican principles of local control, law enforcement, lower taxation, and governing best by burdening least.
In 2015 and 2016, we passed 47 bills regarding cannabis regulation. I look back on those years as my graduate degree program in the regulation of the people, places and products related to cannabis.
In 2020 and 2022, Montana voters delivered Republican majorities in their state House and Senate. Republicans now hold supermajority control of both legislative chambers and all state-level statewide offices. In 2020, Montana voters also approved Initiative 190 to legalize recreational marijuana, which passed with 57% of the vote.
In 2023, Ohio voters approved Issue 2, which legalized recreational marijuana in their state. Coincidentally, Issue 2 also passed with 57% of the vote. As in Montana, Ohio Republicans hold solid trifecta control of the state government.
Republican hopes of regaining majority control of the U.S. Senate now hinge on defeating Democratic Sens. John Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Rather than ignore the will of 57% of the voters in those deep red states, Republicans should act quickly by applying Republican principles to cannabis regulation.
One way to do that is for the Senate to pass the SAFER Banking Act. The legislation would give cannabis companies access to commercial banks, which would reduce opportunities for misdeeds by bad actors, improve the ability of law enforcement to differentiate legal from illegal activity, and provide greater transparency.
All 50 state affiliates of the American Bankers Association support the legislation. Even banks in states where cannabis isn’t legal would welcome the improved ability to verify that they aren’t inadvertently banking cannabis.
One doesn’t have to be for something to regulate it responsibly. It’s time for Republicans to lead on cannabis regulation. It’s also time for the GOP to help pass the SAFER Banking Act.
• Chris Holbert served as a Republican in the Colorado House of Representatives from 2011 to 2014 and the Colorado Senate from 2015 to 2022. During his time in the state Senate, he was elected Senate majority leader, serving from 2017 to 2018, and was twice unanimously elected Senate minority leader, serving from 2019 to 2022.
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