It’s reunion season for the cannabis industry’s most-introduced bill. The SAFE Banking Act was reintroduced in both chambers of Congress within 24 hours: the Senate version on June 24 and the House companion on June 25. The core fix is the same one operators have begged for since 2019 — stop federal regulators from punishing banks that serve state-legal cannabis businesses.
On the Senate side, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) refiled the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act of 2026 with a bipartisan group: Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Steve Daines (R-MT). Merkley’s office laid out the bill in its announcement.
A day later, a bipartisan group of eight House members led by Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) reintroduced the companion bill, as detailed in Joyce’s release. If Joyce’s name sounds familiar, it should — he co-chairs the Congressional Cannabis Caucus and is the same lawmaker pushing the military THC-waiver provision this cycle.
What the SAFE Banking Act would do
So what would SAFE Banking actually do? It would bar federal regulators from penalizing or discouraging banks and credit unions from serving legitimate, state-sanctioned cannabis businesses — and the businesses that serve them, including lawyers, landlords, and vendors. It would protect a bank’s federal deposit insurance from being yanked just because it banks a dispensary. And it would create a safe harbor from criminal liability and asset forfeiture for financial institutions and their employees.
The problem it solves is brutally concrete. Because cannabis is federally illegal, most banks won’t touch the industry, which forces dispensaries to run as cash businesses. That means armored-car pickups, back-office safes, employees paid in cash, and a giant neon target for robbery. It also makes ordinary things — a business loan, a payment processor, a simple checking account — wildly difficult to get.
Here’s the part that should temper your optimism: the House has passed versions of this bill seven separate times between 2019 and 2022, and it has never once cleared the Senate. The Senate Banking Committee advanced a broader version, SAFER Banking, in 2023, and even that stalled. This is the Charlie Brown football of cannabis policy.
But timing matters. Refiling SAFE Banking the same week the DEA opens its rescheduling hearing is not an accident — it builds pressure on two fronts at once. Schedule III, if it sticks, fixes the 280E tax nightmare. SAFE Banking fixes the cash-only nightmare. Operators need both, and reformers know that pairing them tells a cleaner story to moderate senators: legitimize the tax treatment and the banking, or keep pretending a multibillion-dollar legal industry can run out of shoeboxes.
If you operate in this space, the move is unglamorous but real: call your senators’ offices. This bill has died on Senate inaction, not on House votes, and the only thing that has ever moved a stuck Senate bill is constituent pressure plus a must-pass vehicle to ride on.
Related: the June 29 rescheduling hearing. Related: the $15 billion states have collected in weed taxes.
Watch the full episode
Tom Howard and Miggy break down all of this week’s stories on the Sunday, June 28, 2026 episode of Cannabis Legalization News:
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