Mastercard moves to ban cannabis purchases on its debit cards : brainworms

[–] TheWorstNL 195 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 2 years ago (2 children)

As long as it's a legal transaction, the providers should STFU.

[+] Rom 21 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (13 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I'll never use Mastercard out of principle after this. Fuck them.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

fyi slight bone apple tea there

it’s cash in hand

[–] N00dle 57 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is lame. Mastercard telling people what not to by is outrageous but not the first time they've done this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What else have they done? I had no idea this was even legal.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

they did it with pornhub at least

[–] TheBat 4 points 2 years ago

Onlyfans too

[–] JJROKCZ 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 2 years ago

Payment processors have a functional monopoly and should not be permitted to refuse or otherwise be punitive to any category of purchase.

[–] noredcandy 15 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (4 children)

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.

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[+] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago (5 children)

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.

[–] JJROKCZ 6 points 2 years ago

And you’ll have to pay the atm fee as a punishment for using cash

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

All dispensaries around my area take cash. There’s a couple of them that are cash only

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I was amazed the first time I found one that took plastic.

[–] deweydecibel 3 points 2 years ago

If payment processers are blocking these payments, then yes, dispensaries will start accepting cash. They'd be suicidal not to.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Usually (in my experience) the weed store just has an ATM in it, or the POS system is technically an ATM

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

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.

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[–] MdRuckus 11 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

Cannabis users should move to ban Mastercard.

[–] Cybermass 9 points 2 years ago (3 children)

That's a very dumb business move, it might be illegal for then to do that in Canada

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It should be illegal for a company to limit what you can purchase anywhere in the world.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

There's nothing illegal about them blocking illegal purchases on their cards, of which the US federal government still considera marijuana illegal

[–] Cybermass 2 points 2 years ago

Re read my comment

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

You'll not stop me! I'll just withdraw money from an ATM, and what I do with that is nacho business.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

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.

[+] kadu 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Ok, I’ll just switch, they already ban porn purchases 👍

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I didn't even think you were allowed to use debit cards or credit cards to buy weed.

[–] dilligasatall 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I use mine all the time to buy weed, but I'm in Canada, it's legal here.

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