Mastercard will not honor weed purchases

Mastercard has told financial institutions to stop allowing the purchase of marijuana with their debit cards.  

The move to ban card purchases of the drug comes because of legal ramifications under federal law. Marijuana is illegal nationwide despite having been legalized on the state level in places like Colorado and Oregon. 

A spokesman for Mastercard said, "The federal government considers cannabis sales illegal, so these purchases are not allowed on our systems." 

"As we were made aware of this matter, we quickly investigated it. In accordance with our policies, we instructed the financial institutions that offer payment services to cannabis merchants and connects them to Mastercard to terminate the activity," the spokesman said on Wednesday.  

Bradey Cobb, the CEO of Sunburn Cannabis, said in a statement about the ban, "this move is another blow to the state-legal cannabis industry and patients/consumers who want to access this budding category." 

The subject of legalizing cannabis has been recently fought over in the federal legislature. Earlier in July, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer released a letter calling for "bipartisan bills" that could be passed in the July work period.  

These included "safeguard[ing] cannabis banking." 

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) reacted to Schumer's desire to pass a marijuana bill during the July summer months by calling it part of a "wish list." 

In addition, Cornyn added, "it is only wishful thinking to believe that in the U.S. Senate you are going to be able to get all of these necessary items addressed in the next ten working days.” 

Skepticism about the legalization and use of cannabis has been raised since some data has recently shown that an increase in overdoses "may be correlated" to its legalization with the rise in such illicit drugs as fentanyl.