In First 4 States To Do So Legalizing Recreational Pot May Have Spurred Economic Activity
Banking activity in the first four U.S. states to make recreational marijuana legal grew significantly more than in other parts of the country despite federal laws that prohibit financial companies from any involvement with cannabis, according to our new study.
This isn’t to suggest that banks illicitly benefited from the burgeoning pot business by taking deposits from cannabis companies or giving them loans. Our data doesn’t back that up – and those practices remain illegal under federal law. Rather, we believe our findings suggest legalization may have spurred more economic activity generally.
Using data from regulatory filings, we compared the deposits and loans of banks in the first four legalizing states – Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon – with those in every other state. We...