Posted on 03/31/2022 9:30:27 AM PDT by Red Badger
House Democrats are set to pass legislation this week to legalize marijuana at the federal level.
The bill, authored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and titled the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, would remove cannabis from the list of federal controlled substances and eliminate criminal penalties associated with the drug.
It would also impose a federal tax on marijuana sales to fund programs to help communities negatively impacted by the war on drugs.
The bill is set to be taken up by the House Rules Committee on Wednesday and get a vote on the floor by the end of the week.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), in a “Dear Colleague” letter, said that the bill would “restore justice to communities that have been disproportionately impacted by harsh penalties for possessing even small amounts of marijuana.”
“This legislation — which the House passed last Congress — would decriminalize marijuana, expunge the federal arrests and convictions of nonviolent marijuana offenders, prohibit the denial of federal public benefits, and provide resources to support long-term economic recovery efforts for communities of color,” Hoyer added.
When the House previously passed a version of the legislation in 2020, six Democrats voted against the bill while five Republicans backed it.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has vowed to make legalizing marijuana at the federal level a priority. He recently sent a letter to senators asking for input on legislation he’s been working on with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
“We write today to invite you into the drafting process as we work to finalize this legislation. In order to appropriately address such a nuanced issue, we respectfully request the input, advice and guidance of Chairs and Ranking Members of relevant committees as well as senators who have dealt with the challenges and realities of legalization in their own states,” the senators wrote.
But marijuana legislation is expected to hit a wall in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes, including the support of at least 10 GOP senators if every Democrat backed it, in order to advance.
China competitiveness bill
The House and Senate are expected to vote to formally go to conference as soon as this week to work out a deal on their dueling China competitiveness bills.
The Senate locked in a deal to pass its bill again on Monday, using the House bill as a vehicle — a procedural step that sets up the House to vote to go to a conference committee. The Senate is then expected to go to conference.
“With the Senate now scheduled to amend the America COMPETES Act of 2022 with its own version and send it back to us, the House will vote to go to conference this work period. Together, we are moving one step closer to securing the enactment of a bipartisan innovation bill that will secure our supply chains and help bring costs down while ramping innovation up,” Hoyer said in his “Dear Colleague” letter.
The Senate worked out its deal to pass the competitiveness legislation on Monday as part of an agreement between Schumer and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
When the Senate votes to go to a conference with the House, Sanders wants two votes: one related to microchip companies and another related to $10 billion for NASA’s lunar landing program. Republicans are also expected to request votes on instructions for the negotiators who will work out the final deal between the two House and Senate bills.
Russia trade, oil ban bills
Two Russia-related bills are facing a logjam in the Senate after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blocked quick votes on legislation to end normal trade relations with Russia and a separate bill to ban Russian oil imports.
Paul’s objection is tied to Magnitsky Act sanctions that are reauthorized as part of the trade legislation. The Magnitsky Act targets “gross” human rights violations, but the Russia trade bill changes that to “serious” human rights violations, codifying language used in a Trump-era executive order.
But Paul, in a floor speech, said that he wanted to amend the Russia trade bill to change the language back to “gross” human rights violations.
Schumer tried to get Paul to agree to a vote on his amendment in exchange for speeding up the Russia trade legislation and the oil ban bill. But Paul, in an interview, said that he wasn’t going to settle for an amendment vote but instead wanted his language in the bill.
“We’ve just told them they need to put the definition in there of what a human rights abuse is,” Paul said. “But we won’t let them pass it unless they put it in there so, they’re either going to put it in there or they’re going to be here for a week doing it.”
Though the oil ban and the bill to end normal trade relations with Russia passed the House separately, they are effectively tied together in the Senate. Schumer initially tried to take up just the trade legislation last week, but Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) blocked him. Schumer and Crapo eventually reached a deal that the trade legislation and an amendment version of the oil ban bill would get back-to-back votes on the Senate floor.
If Paul doesn’t drop his objection, it could take weeks for the Senate to pass both bills. The Senate floor is already expected to be dominated next week by Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination, and then the chamber is leaving for a two-week break expected to start on April 8.
The floor drama comes as the Senate is also expected to get closed-door briefing this week on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Supreme Court nominee
Jackson’s nomination will be on the Judiciary Committee’s agenda for the first time on Monday.
The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to meet that day at 3 p.m.
But Jackson’s nomination is expected to be held over for a week, with the committee vote taking place April 4.
Democrats want to confirm Jackson before they leave for the two-week April break.
Democrats are able to confirm Jackson on their own as long as all 50 of their members support her nomination and are present to vote. The caucus’s support for Jackson solidified last week, when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) formally announced that he would support her.
Manchin was viewed as likely to support Jackson, but he and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have bucked the party on legislation. Sinema hasn’t yet said if she will support Jackson’s nomination.
No Republican has said yet if they will support Jackson. Three previously voted for her for the appeals court seat: Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
Jackson is also expected to keep meeting one-on-one with senators this week.
Psst.
They’re, not there.
RELEASE THE SOMA!
Yes. The Feds should not be in this business.
legalized drugs = homelessness.
“...when traffic deaths reach a new high...”
From what, people rear-ended while waiting for the stop sign to turn green? 🙄
And then 20 years later they will claw back trillions from the dispensaries they legalized when cases of lung cancer “unexpectedly explode” ...
“Kids are doing “___” anyway. Nothing will changes.”
Robert Downey Jr. was given Marijuana by his father at age eight.
Nothing bad happened to Robert Downey Jr. /
We're tired of Democratic-mandated, politically correct quarantines and useless masks. And now, desperate, election year Democrats do an about-face on CV19 by weakening peoples' immune systems with marijuana so that they're in a higher risk group for getting infected with CV19 (my words) imo.
‘Covid & Marijuana – The Shocking Link Exposed’ (9.7.21)
Also, no express constitutional power to address this issue imo, so this unconstitutional Democratic legislation is unconstitutional expansion of the already unconstitutionally big federal government's powers imo.
So this legislation amounts to nothing more than desperate Democratic election year stunt imo.
Corrections, insights welcome.
A Government Program is the closest thing to immortality on Earth - Ronald Reagan...........
There is NOT an employer outside the cannibis industry that is happy about this.
HOW do you get a clean driver for your company van?
Auto parts stores have delivery trucks running all day long.
Florists have vans running to churches/funeral homes/ hospitals, etc all day long.
UBER & other driver services...
Taxi drivers.
WHAT INSURANCE company is going to cover the actions of a person using “legal Marijuana”????
What machine shop can have such employees?
What assembly line?
Amazon forklifts all over their warehouses.
ROOFERS!!! Already one of the highest workmen’s Comp categories -—and now drugs are legal???
BAN OIL
ALLOW DRUGS
We have fallen down the rabbit hole
Of course there will be a Federal tax on marijuana, how could there not be? And of course the revenue raised by the tax will go to “communities negatively impacted by the war on drugs”. A couple of problems come to mind.
Will there be a penalty for not paying the Federal marijuana tax? Will it involve jail time? Will some communities be ‘negatively impacted’ by the tax avoiders?
For those who don’t remember, back in the day, the Federal government didn’t really have the power to outlaw things, but used the power of taxation to achieve the same goal. So they declared a tax on ‘marihuana’, but refused to issue the tax stamp. Caught with marijuana and no tax stamp, off to prison with you.
Several states have legalized marijuana (and of course tax it) but they find that many users prefer to buy their weed at an untaxed lower price from agents of the cartels.
We don’t care if you drug yourself to oblivion, but you will pay us for the privilege!
Exactly.
I am for legalization but this bill is not a removal of pot from the controlled substance list it is a federal power grab usurping regulation and control from the states.
The only gateway pot opens is the gateway to the fridge and the cookie jar…
“House Democrats are set to pass legislation this week to legalize marijuana at the federal level”
Dumb em down and keep em stoned and they are easily controled.
Priorities
I’m not going to argue here about the moral issues of drugs.
My argument is this; the Constitution only gives the federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce, importation, and exportation of goods into and out of the USA.
What laws a state chooses to enact with regard to drugs inside their state is THEIR business, not Washington D.C.
That is all.
Good.
What adults decide to do to themselves is their business.
We can now declare “the war on drugs” won. Regulate, tax it, control it and take a good deal of money away from Cartels and divert police resources.
Not to mention hugely reducing incarceration.
If an adult wants to smoke pot, snort ants, or shoot up Drano.. Not my problem. as long as they don’t physically hurt somebody else or put another’s life in jeopardy..
Something else is going on. I have a friend that needs a new roof. The biggest roofer in town told him that he can’t get a crew together. This is in Oregon. Never been a problem getting illegals or illegal pot smokers to put a roofing crew together, before.
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