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GOP Reps. Pitch Bill To Federally Decriminalize Cannabis
Law360 ^ | May 12, 2021 | Sam Reisman

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Cannabis Reform for Veterans, Small Businesses and Medical Professionals Act, pitching it as an overdue corrective to outdated federal cannabis policy.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.


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cannabis; constitution; marijuana; pot; tenthamendment; wod
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To: NobleFree

Federalism - should never have federal laws in the first place.


41 posted on 05/13/2021 7:36:27 AM PDT by bigbob
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To: NobleFree

States in general can’t regulate how you buy goods from a seller in another state. However federal law permits states to regulate and prohibit buying alcohol from sellers in a different state.


42 posted on 05/13/2021 7:36:55 AM PDT by only1percent ( who )
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To: L,TOWM
This would be a nice step in the right direction...

I'm not a marijuana consumer and not likely to ever become one.

Having said that, I'm curious to know if this legislation is going to be a stepping stone to gun control/gun confiscation from those who consume marijuana?

Those of us who live in states like Hellinois for example and have medical marijuana cards (I do not ...) cannot legally purchase guns or ammo in this state already. In fact, applications for FOID cards and Conceal/Carry permits in this state have specific questions on them pertaining to drug use (marijuana) and psychological care which are used to deny marijuana users or those who seek psychiatric treatment ineligible for them.

Lying on these forms is considered a perjury and subject to prosecution and the State of Illinois for example has the capability to cross-check medical marijuana users against FOID/Conceal Carry permit requests to disqualify them and identify cases for perjury.

So will any Federal regulation remediate these issues or just complicate them more and disqualify more and more people from exercising their Second Amendment rights?

43 posted on 05/13/2021 7:40:04 AM PDT by usconservative (When The Ballot Box No Longer Counts, The Ammunition Box Does. (What's In Your Ammo Box?))
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To: NobleFree
I don't think the feds mandate a 21 year old drinking age per se. What they did was threaten to withhold highway funding to states that did not comply with the 21 age requirement. Pretty dirty, since that money comes from the states in the first place.
44 posted on 05/13/2021 7:41:23 AM PDT by MRadtke (Light a candle or curse the darkness?)
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To: NobleFree

I don’t disagree. I am just trying to figure out why we allow alcohol traditionally, but not other chemicals. All I can think of is because alcohol is allowed in the bible. What is your theory?


45 posted on 05/13/2021 7:47:56 AM PDT by Codeflier (Covid-19 taught me: Two types of "conservatives", frightened safety seekers vs. freedom lovers)
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To: Bernard
Does the bill include a federal tax? That would be appropriate, as well as a federal license to sell and a required ID card to purchase.

So you want a BIGGER government with another layer of Fed bureaucracy who really serve no useful purpose? Why not just let the states handle this?

46 posted on 05/13/2021 7:48:01 AM PDT by BipolarBob (This is my chainsaw. There are many like it but this one is mine.)
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To: usconservative
applications for FOID cards and Conceal/Carry permits in this state have specific questions on them pertaining to drug use (marijuana) and psychological care which are used to deny marijuana users

Unless they deny ONLY users of LEGAL marijuana, users will be no more 2A-restricted under federal noncriminalization than they are today.

47 posted on 05/13/2021 7:48:47 AM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: ecomcon

Seven Days in May. And, you are correct- maintaining the stoner industry is not a priority- unless the country wishes to continue keeping everyone on a “covid” marijuana stipend support payment bill for another 2 or 4 trillion printed from the Fed Reserve (which we can never pay back, not even with illegal dope money, or legitimized). A nation of non-working, stoners.) More lunacy from the “bought” repubs. Those illegals have to have skill sets for this new “industry”— so, let em in.


48 posted on 05/13/2021 7:49:44 AM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: NobleFree

John Boehner’s handiwork as chief lobbyist for Cannabis Inc., his daughter’s Jamaican posse husband (importer) and in between drunken morning ramblings, chain smoking cigarettes and playing golf (and of course trashing Trump).


49 posted on 05/13/2021 7:51:26 AM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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To: ClearCase_guy

It was ok to drink alcohol that you made privately. You couldn’t manufacture, transport or sell it during prohibition.


50 posted on 05/13/2021 7:53:04 AM PDT by Az Joe (FREE CHAUVIN!)
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To: Codeflier
I am just trying to figure out why we allow alcohol traditionally, but not other chemicals. All I can think of is because alcohol is allowed in the bible. What is your theory?

The bluenonses whose alcohol ban ultimately failed disagreed that alcohol is allowed in the Bible (as many still do to this day). I think the main cause of the difference is that bluenoses tackled a more popular inebriant, and did so at a time when Americans were more jealous of their liberties and had more common sense to observe and learn from the practical failings of Prohibition.

51 posted on 05/13/2021 7:54:45 AM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: John S Mosby
drunken morning ramblings, chain smoking cigarettes

What action do you support against those drugs?

52 posted on 05/13/2021 7:56:52 AM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: NobleFree

I never donated that much but they’re never going to get a penny from me ever again


53 posted on 05/13/2021 7:57:25 AM PDT by RaceBannon (Rom 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for )
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To: RaceBannon
So you're against federal adherence to the Constitution?
54 posted on 05/13/2021 7:58:34 AM PDT by NobleFree ("law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual")
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To: L,TOWM

“Funny — a lot of the dems are more drug warriors than the GOP is today.”


Because Dems are, at heart, dictators. The drug war is just another excuse/justification for enslaving us more and more over time. You cannot even deposit more than $10,000 in legally-acquired and non-drug related cash into your account without filing a report with the IRS...because of the War on (Some) Drugs.

Oh, and before anyone flings any accusations, I don’t do drugs, never have. This is about the role of government in our society, nothing more and nothing less.


55 posted on 05/13/2021 8:00:15 AM PDT by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt, “The Weapon Shops of Isher”)
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To: NobleFree

This would go a long way in ending illegal searches of motorists in small towns.


56 posted on 05/13/2021 8:02:22 AM PDT by 38special (For real, y'all.)
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To: NobleFree

Pot should not be legalized and, yes, we should roll back the state-level laws that have legalized it.


57 posted on 05/13/2021 8:04:45 AM PDT by Reno89519 (Buy American, Hire American! End All Worker Visa Programs. Replace Visa Workers w/ American Wo)
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To: NobleFree

IMHO it’s always been a issue for the states to decide. I 100% support ending the federal prohibition of cannabis!


58 posted on 05/13/2021 8:06:01 AM PDT by TheStickman (#MAGA all day every day!)
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To: KC_Lion

Thanks for the ping!

Hope all is good with ya :)


59 posted on 05/13/2021 8:06:42 AM PDT by TheStickman (#MAGA all day every day!)
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To: NobleFree

Boehner, FRiend— Boehner. A completely useless crying twit from Gingrich’s coat tails— who is now hand in hand with his biotch controller Nanzi Pelosi (nee D’Alessandro, of Baltimore). These people are all... all of them, the new Mob- the sanitized “liberated” and buried in facade— Mob.

It was better when the lines were clearly drawn- the days of Santo Traficante vs... the effin bee eye. This is not a Libertarian argument, but a clinical research and public health one. Everyone seems to be seeking a rationalization new low in the qualities that make an American Citizen.


60 posted on 05/13/2021 8:07:17 AM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
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