Posted on 05/13/2021 6:54:09 AM PDT by NobleFree
Republican congressmen on Wednesday introduced a bill that would decriminalize cannabis federally, direct federal regulators to develop rules overseeing its sale and grant safe harbor to financial institutions that bank with the industry.
Reps. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, and Don Young, R-Ark. introduced the bill, entitled the Common Sense Cannabis Reform for Veterans, Small Businesses and Medical Professionals Act, pitching it as an overdue corrective to outdated federal cannabis policy.
"With more than 40 states taking action on this issue, it's past time for Congress to recognize that continued cannabis prohibition is neither tenable nor the will of the American electorate," Joyce said in a statement.
The bill would remove cannabis from the federal schedule of controlled substances only once federal regulators, including the U.S.Food and Drug Administration and Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau of the Treasury Department, issue rules to regulate marijuana.
"Such rules shall, to the extent practicable, be similar to federal rules regulating alcohol," according to the bill. The agencies would have a year to develop those rules upon passage of the act.
In addition to descheduling cannabis, the bill would shield banks and any other service providers that do business with legal cannabis entities from criminal liability. It would also allow physicians to recommend cannabis treatment for veterans in jurisdictions with medical marijuana programs.
"This bill takes significant steps to modernize our laws by removing cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and allowing the VA to prescribe medical cannabis to veterans, in addition to finally permitting state-legal cannabis businesses to utilize traditional financial services," Young said in a statement.
The bill has the backing of some cannabis advocacy organizations, including the omnibus group U.S. Cannabis Council, launched earlier this year, the National Medicinal Cannabis Coalition and the National Cannabis Roundtable.
"It is incredibly encouraging to see Republican leadership to end the federal prohibition and criminalization of cannabis," Steven W. Hawkins, interim president and CEO of the U.S. Cannabis Council, said in a statement. "Cannabis reform is truly a bipartisan matter ripe for immediate solution.
The 14-page bill made its debut ahead of a more comprehensive piece of cannabis reform legislation that has been teased for months by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore. That legislation is expected to emphasize restorative justice, expungement of convictions, community reinvestment and public health, the lawmakers have said, but its details have not been released.
Shortly after Joyce and Young announced their bill, Schumer tweeted on Wednesday that he and the other senators were continuing to refine the legislation. "We must finally end the federal prohibition on marijuana, advance criminal justice reform and ensure equity for communities impacted by the War on Drugs," he said.
Other federal cannabis reform bills introduced this session include the SAFE Banking bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in April on a 321-101 vote. That bill would shield from legal liability banks and other financial institutions that do business with state-legal cannabis entities.
Good. It’s a state’s rights issue. Let them decide. This isn’t in the FedGov’s swimlane.
I am surprised.
Just think, the maryjane purchaser ID could be used as a voter ID as well. Less bulk in the wallet, after all.
Just what America needs, more brain rot.
Priorities
My fellow congresscritters the masses are on to our wicked ways ... Quick we must distract and confuse them and the money will continue to flow
Note that neither Adams nor any other Founding Father ever said that laws against debauchery could make people non-debauched.
This would be a nice step in the right direction...
Funny — a lot of the dems are more drug warriors than the GOP is today. A lot of folks on the GOP side have seen the benefit on folks coping with PTSD and depression. A lot of veterans, IOW. Stuff dies have some medical purposes.
A few years ago I started pushing a meme I now strongly believe: The US is like the EU, except we have a military.
That is, we are 50 “mostly sovereign” countries that are members of a single federation. That federation (the FedGov) exists to provide protection from enemies from outside, protect member countries from each other, and handle situations when stuff crosses borders between member countries.
Beyond that, they should leave us all the hell alone. One writer once said that before the IRS existed, the only contact most citizens had with the FedGov was the mailman.
Any way, my thinking is of the founders. We are a federation of membership nations which control virtually everything that goes down within their own borders.
We can either properly claim this as a states rights and personal freedom issue, or let the other side do it. Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t shoved a bill through already.
This is gonna hurt the search & seizure industry. That, and the prison industry.
Why is any of that the proper business of the federal government? Do the feds impose licensing and ID requirements for the sale and purchase of the drug alcohol?
Before prohibition, there was no federal control of drugs. They were legal as far as the FedGov was concerned. Sadly, only the alcohol part of prohibition was reversed.
America has been using marijuana for generations despite federal law. And nowhere in the Constitution are the feds authorized to regulate within-state marijuana policy, even in the name of fighting "brain rot."
I think taking profit opportunities away from violent criminals is a good thing; perhaps you feel differently.
The Feds regulate alcohol very closely. Excise tax, labeling, mandating 21 as the drinking age, and permitting state distribution and retailing laws to trump rules did free interstate commerce that apply to most other things.
"And another thing, I don't like marijuana."
Oh. Okay. We'll pass a law. Anything else I can do for you today?"
“Any way, my thinking is of the founders. We are a federation of membership nations which control virtually everything that goes down within their own borders.”
I agree, and have always said the same thing. Most folks should never even think about the federal government, much less have contact with it.
I often ask folks if they realize the difference it’d make in their lives if the amount they’re paying in federal taxes actually went to their state government, and the amount they’re paying in state taxes went to the federal government. You listed the limits of federal power, and if we reversed taxation that would almost certainly happen.
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