A new Republican-led congressional marijuana legalization bill is imminent, Marijuana Moment has learned.
The measure, titled the States Reform Act, is currently being circulated among stakeholders for feedback and is therefore preliminary, but a final version is expected to be officially filed later this month.
Getting Republican buy in could prove critical to getting something over the finish line, and the Mace measure seems aimed at appealing to the states’ rights and business interests of conservative colleagues on her side of the aisle while also incorporating some restorative justice and tax elements largely favored by progressives.
-The Food and Drug Administration would be limited in its regulatory authority, with the intent being that it would have no more control over cannabis than it does for alcohol except when it comes to medical cannabis.
The draft bill is 116 pages, so these details represent just a portion of what’s comprised in the legislation.
Yet, despite that support, President Joe Biden continues to oppose adult-use legalization.
“Each day we continue to make history,” he said in a video message that played at the start of the event.
“People of color were left bruised and beaten, thrown behind bars and torn away from their families and support network all for cannabis,” Bonta, who sponsored legislation as a state assemblyman that was enacted in 2018 to require the sealing of cannabis convictions, said.
“We need smart regulation smart law enforcement, streamlined licensing systems and the removal of other barriers that keep cannabis unsafe and underground,” the attorney general said.
“As we move the cannabis industry into the legal regulated marketplace, there is no excuse for the environmental devastation, economic impact and labor exploitation.
The governor also recently approved a bill to boost the state’s hemp industry by legalizing retail sales of a wide range of consumable products derived from the plant—including CBD-infused foods, beverages, cosmetics and dietary supplements.
Senators could vote on another marijuana-related amendment to a must-pass defense bill that was filed on Thursday.
The Senate unanimously approved an earlier version of that bill late last year, but it was not taken up by the House by the end of the session.
The research proposal would also clarify that physicians are allowed to discuss the risks and benefits of marijuana with patients and require the U.S.
For now, the research and veterans amendments are the only cannabis-related measures that have been submitted, but it’s not yet clear when the overall bill will come to the Senate floor.
That said, Schumer did say during a recent podcast interview that he’s open to approving banking as part of the defense legislation if it contains social equity components.
House lawmakers, for their part, also passed legislation last year to expand cannabis research, but that bill did not advance in the Senate.
Congressional legislators are also advancing a separate strategy to open up dispensary cannabis to researchers.
The House Veterans Affairs Committee passed the legislation, sponsored by Rep.
Its text, which was identical to standalone legislation the congresswoman filed in April, essentially represented a more dialed back, less prescriptive proposal to encourage VA medical cannabis studies as compared to Correa’s measure.
Miller-Meeks’s legislation says that the department would have to “conduct and support research relating to the efficacy and safety of forms of cannabis” for chronic pain, PTSD and “other conditions the Secretary determines appropriate,” without the specific requirement for full clinical trials as in Correa’s bill.
“With all due respect, VA could be doing that level of research now and simply has chosen not to,” he said.
“We simply must equip VA and its healthcare providers with scientific guidance about the potential impacts, benefits and/or dangers of cannabis used to treat chronic pain and PTSD,” Takano said ahead of the vote.