Payment providers should not be able to control what users are or are not allowed to purchase with their cards. It’s a downward spiral. Electronic payment is a necessity in nowadays life.
As long as it’s a legal transaction, the providers should STFU.
In many states, and federally, marijuana sales aren’t legal transactions, and that’s the point. I don’t think Mastercard is necessarily doing anything wrong here, they’re just covering their asses. This one is on our politicians who are still dragging their heels on legalizing marijuana.
Sets a precedent though, and implies that the card companies are responsible for what people buy. First it’s drugs, then it’s porn, liquor, gender affirming items and hormones, contraceptives, or whatever else the fascists don’t like. Companies won’t want to be fined by the fascist right once they start pushing to ban things.
Mastercard is adhering to federal laws, not taking a moral stand. Credit card companies aren’t obligated to facilitate illegal transactions. If they were banning something whose sale was completely legal, there would be a argument to be made here, but that’s not what’s happening. They aren’t going to go after porn, liquor, gender affirming items, hormones, or contraceptives, unless some fascists ban them, at which point it’s not the credit card companies restricting you, it’s the fascists. Go after the fascists.
What federal law are they adhering to? Mastercard isn’t buying the drugs they are denying a person access to the funds that that person already owns. Mastercard should be agnostic to what the person uses that money for.
It sets a precedent that card companies are responsible for what their client’s purchase, and can reject transactions based on what their clients are purchasing, not how much money/credit they have.
I can go after corporate shitheads and fascists especially when they are holding each other’s cocks.
The fact that marijuana is still federally classified as a Schedule I drug. Why would you think credit card companies should allow cardholders to make illegal transactions using their credit cards? Do you think they’d be okay with people using their credit cards to purchase child pornography? Or hitmen? Trafficked persons? What about 100 kilos of cocaine? I’m aware marijuana isn’t as bad as any of those things, and it’s way past time for the laws to be updated, but the fact remains it’s still against the law to purchase it. To argue they have no obligation to make sure they aren’t facilitating in illegal actions is absurd. As far as I know they’ve never allowed illegal transactions to be made, so absolutely no precedent is being set here.
Why should I care what a person is buying? So what if they are buying hitmen or 100 kilos of cocaine? If and when they get caught they will go to prison. It’s not Mastercard’s job to police the system.
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It’s not a defense of corporations to point out that the root cause of this problem is the laws, you illiterate baby. “Corporations follow existing laws if they protect their profits” isn’t a surprise to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Fix the laws around marijuana and the rest of the issue solves itself.
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I’ll never use Mastercard out of principle after this. Fuck them.
You do realize that there are no banks in the United States that will allow marijuana related business to work with them either, right?
It’s highly illegal under federal law. My business is done business with marijuana related businesses in the past, and they all have to operate with cash and hand only. It’s insane.
Nothing like carrying a suitcase full of $250,000 in small sequential unmarked bills to the bank you know…
fyi slight bone apple tea there
it’s cash in hand
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Liability?
There isn’t as far as I know and there shouldn’t ever be.
Payment processors have a functional monopoly and should not be permitted to refuse or otherwise be punitive to any category of purchase.
This is lame. Mastercard telling people what not to by is outrageous but not the first time they’ve done this.
What else have they done? I had no idea this was even legal.
they did it with pornhub at least
Onlyfans too
That one was due to pornhub supposedly not doing any content management to make sure illegal content (child/bestiality/ revenge porn) wasn’t available. Once pornhub put in better security measures, the providers authorized transactions again.
That’s little different from the providers revoking my businesses ability to accept credit cards if I’m found to not follow the standards required of me for SOX compliance
of course pornhub does content management. You’re not gonna find a more strictly managed porn site anywhere. They instituted unprecedented regulation, most of their content was wiped and they manually verify studios to be able to upload.
and no, they did not authorize transactions again.
They weren’t doing much content management before all that though.
And my bad, I thought they had, I haven’t checked because I’ve never been in their market to begin with
Yes, yes they were, and absolutely are now.
you’re not wrong, but also certain legal, consensual fetish porn is still blocked by the major payment providers. it’s the reason OF/JFF have some arbitrary restrictions
I think I’m going to make it a goal to stop using these companies. I think credit cards should be banned as predatory actually, or at least heavily restricted.
These aren’t credit cards, but debit cards. It’s access to money you have already earned, is in the bank, you own, and Mastercard is saying you can’t spend it on a particular thing. You get around this by doing an ATM cash withdrawal, but it’s still an extra step, and it’s still a megacorp restricting your access to something that the law does not.
And you’ll have to pay the atm fee as a punishment for using cash
Bold move to assume they’ll take cash. Many places gave up on cash during the pandemic and many of those haven’t gone back to taking cash.
I used to hate the “convince” fee companies charged for using a credit card, but when it’s reframed as a cash discount, it’s not as aggravating.
That said, plenty of places are electronic payment only these days. Scary times, given the payment processor monopoly and their ability to determine what you can and can’t buy.
All dispensaries around my area take cash. There’s a couple of them that are cash only
I was amazed the first time I found one that took plastic.
If payment processers are blocking these payments, then yes, dispensaries will start accepting cash. They’d be suicidal not to.
Usually (in my experience) the weed store just has an ATM in it, or the POS system is technically an ATM
It’s access to money you have already earned, is in the bank, you own, and Mastercard is saying you can’t spend it on a particular thing.
Strictly speaking, they’re saying that they won’t facilitate the transaction themselves, presumably because they’re concerned about legal exposure from processing transactions for goods that are illegal under federal law. State law may not be restricting your access, but federal still is, at least on paper, even if it’s largely de facto unenforced.
Mastercard makes money every time you swipe a card. They’re not going to cut off their own income unless they think the cost of not doing doing so is higher, such as legal exposure.
I agree that I don’t love how much control a few private companies have over the financial system, but at least with this case, I think the real issue is Congress for not getting around to legalizing Marijuana.
Sometimes I need weed but don’t want to get out of my car. It’s a real problem.
Well, they can’t stop a cash withdrawal on your card to pay for it. So, it appears they still have to pay for it in a way.
Cannabis users should move to ban Mastercard.
That’s a very dumb business move, it might be illegal for then to do that in Canada
It should be illegal for a company to limit what you can purchase anywhere in the world.
Under the law, they literally have to limit transactions for illegal goods, otherwise they become complicit in that crime.
The real stupidity is that Marijuana is still illegal under federal law.
There’s nothing illegal about them blocking illegal purchases on their cards, of which the US federal government still considera marijuana illegal
Re read my comment
I only skimmed the article but it seemed US centric so I’d guess this is relevant to the US since it’s not legal federally there. I was worried for a moment since I use one for my orders in Canada. Though if for some reason does happen in Canada I’m sure there’ll still be some way to do online orders like with Interac or another company. Too much tax money collected for the Canadian government to just let an online revenue stream dry up from a credit lender.
This was a maneuver by VISA and MC in the Aughts when Wikileaks was publishing information embarrassing to the US Federal Government.
Pharmacies and medical doctors have long been creative about preserving privacy. Dispensaries will go back to selling tea or candy or miscellaneous OTC pharmacological product which they’ve been doing since prohibition if not before.
From the article: “The federal government considers cannabis sales illegal, so these purchases are not allowed on our systems,” the spokesperson added.
Seems like this isn’t a Mastercard thing, but a government thing. Marijuana is still illegal at the inter-state level unfortunately.
This is exactly it, and everyone crowing about “credit card companies shouldn’t be able to restrict what you can buy” didn’t read the article. Mastercard doesn’t want to restrict people from buying things they are legally allowed to buy, because more Mastercard transactions = more money for them. But they have to follow the laws, and being complicit in illegal purchases puts them at risk for litigation.
No point in getting mad at Mastercard for this. Get angry at our politicians who still haven’t legalized marijuana. If marijuana is legalized federally, and sales of marijuana are legalized federally, I guarantee you MC will lift this ban in a heartbeat so they can get a piece of that pie. Cannabis is a cash cow.
that hasnt been being enforced for a long time, so if something’s changed it’d help Mastercard’s PR quite a bit to point to a government order or something.
Otherwise yeah it’s a mastercard thing
It’s still a non-trivial legal liability that any major company would prefer to not have.
If you could spend $1 to eliminate a 1% chance that you’re going to be arrested, you’re probably gonna take it.
You think they’re gonna go arrest John Mastercard because someone bought recreational marijuana from a vendor in a legal state?
MF said “John Mastercard”…
I think a risk-averse corporation may decide that it’s not worth bothering with.
At any rate, it’s their own pockets they’re hurting.
no, payment processors blocking transactions for your business is definitely hurting more pockets than their own.
You’ll not stop me! I’ll just withdraw money from an ATM, and what I do with that is nacho business.
And over here in Sweden we’re 99% cash-less at the moment. I tried to warn as many as possible that we do not want to give up transactional independence.
Ok, I’ll just switch, they already ban porn purchases 👍
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We’re about to get this with FedNow. It’s 4 cents rather than 0.5, but it’s better than debit card fees
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I didn’t even think you were allowed to use debit cards or credit cards to buy weed.
I use mine all the time to buy weed, but I’m in Canada, it’s legal here.
In washington state it is only cash. Banks will not bank with weed sellers.
Use my debit card every time here in NY.
