Colorado co-op plan adds hemp farmers !!!

Backing down from a five-hour fight over whether industrial hemp farmers should be able to access a new credit union-like arrangement for marijuana businesses, the state House narrowly passed a pot banking bill that would create the first cooperative of its kind.

Acquiescing to Senate insistence that hemp farmers be allowed to join the cooperatives, representatives voted 33-31 for House Bill 1398, sending it to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s desk for approval and, ultimately, a showdown with federal banking regulators.

The cooperative setup requires approval by the U.S. Federal Reserve, which regulates the nation’s banking system.

The vote was the ultimate compromise for legislators who wanted to keep the cooperatives limited to marijuana businesses.

But industrial hemp farmers had voiced problems about accessing banking services, specifically with co-mingling loans on crops such as wheat and corn with hemp.

“Two farmers with lines of credit were threatened, one told outright that if he grew hemp, the bank would terminate his line of credit,” said Samantha Walsh of the Rocky Mountain Hemp Association.

Banking lobbies that agreed to remain neutral on the House Bill 1398 have flipped to opposing it because hemp farmers were included.

It is unclear whether Hickenlooper will sign the bill with the politically powerful bankers lobbies opposed to it, or with the hemp provision included. His office nevertheless expressed initial optimism.

“We are very happy this legislation passed,” said Andrew Freedman, the governor’s director of marijuana coordination. “This gives us an avenue to go to the Federal Reserve, and get cash off the street. That was by far our No. 1 priority.”