A growing number of states have passed laws legalizing marijuana, and more states are currently considering legalization bills of their own. If you live in one of the 16 states that already allows marijuana to be purchased for medicinal use, you can charge it according to most major credit card issuers’ policies.
If you’re a Mastercard holder, however, the fact that you’ve swiped weed expenses in the past doesn’t guarantee you’ll be able to do so in the future.
“The issue of purchasing medical marijuana is an emerging issue, and we’re continuing to look into it,” says Jim Issokson, a spokesman for MasterCard.
Visa and Discover also allow people to purchase medical marijuana in states where it’s legal. Citing the fact that marijuana–medical or not–is still illegal according to federal law, American Express does not allow its customers to use its cards for pot purchases of any kind.
“It is our policy to adhere to the federal law in such matters,” Bradley R. Manor, an AmEx spokesman, told Smartmoney.com.
Last week Delaware became the latest state to legalize medical marijuana. Patients in Delaware may possess up to six ounces of pot, as long as they obtain a written note from their doctor describing the specific medical need and send a copy of the note to the state’s health and human services department, according to a summary by medicalmarijuana.procon.org.
Ten other states have bills pending in their state legislatures that, if passed, would allow patients to possess different amounts of marijuana. Connecticut, which has six bills pending, including one advanced by Governor Dannel P. Malloy, appears closest to passing the next legalization law.
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Image: skinfitness, via Flickr
Christopher Maag Contributing writer for Credit.com, Chris graduated with honors from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and has reported for a number of publications including The New York Times, TIME magazine and Popular Mechanics. Reach Chris via email at chris@credit.com.
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The war on drugs is a tale of a once great and free nation, which having fallen down a rat hole into a fantasy world riddled with peculiar and dystopian logic, tore up it’s own constitution.
No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will restore our constitution or make our streets safe again; only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are we willing to foolishly risk our own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?
If you support prohibition then you’re doing nothing but helping evolve local gangs into transnational enterprises with intricate power structures that reach into every corner of society, controlling vast swaths of territory with significant social and military resources at their disposal.
A credit card company is confused who’s credit it is. And you certainly can’t use your credit card for online poker, the conservatives made sure of that. These puritan ideals–anti gambling, and anti fun–are from 1650! Yes, the year 1650. If your head is stuck in 1650 you shouldn’t be making laws or be in any authoritative position.
What has mankind devolved to when it is afraid of things that grow from the ground. You do realise that! Don’t you!? Only cowards are afraid of plants. We need to realise as a world, that some people in this world are psychopaths and sadistic cowards, and these idiots should have no voice in the public arena.
And unless you want to claim you are God, no individual or group has the right or the authority to illegalize a plant.
I want to be a grown up during my lifetime, PLEASE! I’m not going to let some sub-human child thing order me around, and everyone else, because it selfishly wants everyone at it’s own lowly level so it doesn’t have to fear or be challenged or grow.
To be fair to the credit card companies, as bizarre a concept as that is, there are several risks to them if they allow purchase of goods or services by card holders, where that purchase is illegal under U.S. Law (the U.S.A. being both the prime market of credit cards, and the most hilariously self-righteous of extant nations in the application of its laws in/to other jurisdictions). The company pays the merchant, and then recovers the funds from the card holder. Arguably this implies that the company purchases the good or service, strike one, and then sells it on to the card holder, strike two. Then, apart from the risk of criminal liability, there is also the question of whether they have any legal recourse against the card holder to recover the money spent.
The credit card company doesn’t give a crap about the illegality or otherwise of drugs, guns, erotica (wtf? your filter blocks the common four-letter synonym?), or human slaves. These are credit card companies we are talking about; if not the most evil institution ever invented by humanity, certainly in the top ten. Left to make their own decision they would probably approve wholeheartedly of the purchase, on the basis that, all else being equal,the purchaser of a drug is more likely to incur interest charges and late fees, and is more likely to make that purchase again. They are getting their arms twisted here by prohibitionist legislators.
Credit Card companies should be mandated to follow the same set of rules across the board. Not one company allowing illegal purchases while another restricts. Shoot pretty soon you’ll be able to own the VISA Green Card for when you get the munchies.