When I read the news last week that the Federal Reserve had denied a master account for The Fourth Corner Credit Union, a Colorado state chartered bank, I nearly blew a gasket.

And frankly, the more I read about the rational for denial, the angrier I get at our Federal Government.

Hell, for that matter, I’m getting more and more pissed off at the entire federal government bureaucracy and the politicians that create the laws (or more accurately, fail to create them, as has been the case with the great bipartisan divide that this country has existed in for the last two decades) and their oppressive Edwardian attitude of “do as I say not as I do.”

Big Brother is still flexing its muscle in the failed war on drugs that was initiated by our parent’s generation, and it is time for the bullying and interference to stop. Let the pioneers that are working so hard to create the next great legal industry compete on an even playing field before we give it away to foreign competitors like we have by over regulating other U.S. industries in the past.

In the last year alone, I have witnessed federal government interference with legal and electorate-supported state initiatives even though the Obama administration has provided the opportunity to experiment and demonstrate that cannabis can responsibly be regulated for medical use and for adult use.

For example:

• We have the IRS with its unfair 280 E guidelines and penalties for business entities that pay their taxes in cash, effectively laundering more money than any bank in the country while at the same time not allowing business expense deductions that most other taxpayers routinely qualify for.
• We have the unholy trinity alliance of the DEA/NIH/NIDA plus the pharmaceutical lobby colluding to keep clinical cannabis trials from happening. These trials would, once and for all, put to rest the BS scheduling of marijuana as a controlled substance that has “no medicinal value” and is considered as dangerous and addictive as heroin (let alone alcohol, tobacco and the sugar content in foods allowed by the FDA that makes America one of the most obese nations on earth!).
• We have a federally-sponsored private prison system and law enforcement subsidies that are rewarded with taxpayers dollars to incarcerate non-violent criminals. The vast majority of these people are minorities, and we fail to treat these people as victims of a failed drug policy for addiction-related offenses. Instead, we have the pharmaceutical, alcohol and the addicted to federal funding, law enforcement lobbies making it tough for progressive national policies to pass Congress that give the new Cannabis Industry the resources that they need to build a responsible, regulated industry that reflects the will of the majority of the American registered voter base.
• We have two-faced politicians running for president, like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, from a state where voters legalized medical marijuana just before his administration took over, standing in the way of implementing a program where doctors and patients alike can benefit from the relief that medical marijuana has again and again proven to provide. Christie has unequivocally stated out of one side of his mouth that he is all for state’s determining their own path regarding same sex marriage (as if a bureaucratic institution has the right to tell anyone what their sexual preference allowances and the corresponding rights that come with forming a union through marriage should be), while saying that, if elected president, he will unleash the Federal government’s full fury on the very businesses in state’s where voters have voted for marijuana legalization.

And now, just when it seems like the Fed (yes the Federal Reserve) can help provide a tool — banking services — to an industry that has struggled with the dangers of transacting entirely in cash, leveling the playing field for the Cannabis Industry, the evil empire strikes again.

Last month, another federal bureaucratic institution, the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA),  decided not to grant Denver’s Fourth Corner Credit Union deposit insurance, similar to the $250,000 coverage that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation provides for standard bank accounts. According to The New York Times, the reason the Fourth Corner Credit Union was not eligible for deposit insurance was that it had not proved how it would mitigate the risk associated with serving a single industry that does not have an established track record of success and remains illegal at the federal level.

What a load of crap; let’s stand in the way in any way possible to impede success so we can cite that as the reason for not granting access to our national financial system!

Until Federal agencies and their aging bureaucracies stop colluding to impose their collective will to fix the game and make it unnecessarily difficult for the Cannabis Industry to succeed, these pioneers will continue to play in a game that is fixed under the perpetuated myth of the Controlled Substances Act.

We all need to continue to raise the level of noise to confront an invisible hand that no longer represents the will of its citizens, but desperately clings to the dishonesty and arrogance of the Nixon Administration that ignored their own findings to start an expensive war that is still being waged by the bureaucratic remnants of a failed past.