I<\/span>n a late-night vote on Wednesday, the House Rules Committee blocked the full chamber of Congress from holding a vote to extend medical marijuana protections and several other cannabis-related amendments to next year\u2019s omnibus Appropriations bill.<\/p>\n Since\u00a0the 2014 Rohrabacher-Farr amendment<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 now known as the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment, cannabis-supporting House representatives have attached riders to must-pass bills in order to prevent the Department of Justice from using federal funds to prosecute medical cannabis patients and providers who comply with state law. After three successful years, this strategy might have finally failed.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, the rules committee also blocked the House from voting on the McClintock-Polis amendment, which would have had a similar effect to Rohrabacher-Blumenauer in preventing the Justice Department from interfering with states\u2019 cannabis laws \u2014 only in this case, the protection would apply to places where cannabis had been legalized for adult recreational use. Finally, an amendment from Democratic representative Denny Heck of Vancouver, Washington that would have prevented the federal government from interfering with banks and lenders to choosing to work with cannabis industry was stalled by the committee\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n Tom Angell, Chairman of Marijuana Majority to let everyone know all hope wasn\u2019t completely lost.<\/p>\n Concerning developments, for sure, but Senate put state medical marijuana protections in their bill already. Will be resolved in conference.<\/p>\n \u2014 Tom Angell deciduous_treenewspaper (@tomangell) September 7, 2017<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \nIn his tweet, Angell was referring to the conference committee process \u2014 when leaders of the House and Senate meet behind closed doors to merge their two bills into one fairly palatable version to send to the President. Conference committees are a unique animal and generally tend to be one of the less democratic processes in politics.<\/p>\n Like Angell, the D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project expressed hope for a conference committee resolution in a statement Wednesday, following the vote by candlelight. They also noted the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment now stands to expire on September 30 unless the Senate version of the budget is approved.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose federal interference in state medical marijuana programs, it is unconscionable not to let their Representatives vote on whether to continue this policy,\u2019\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0MPP director of conservative outreach Don Murphy. \u201cUnless Congress chooses the Senate budget version, millions of seriously ill patients and the legitimate businesses that provide them with safe access to their medicine will be at risk of prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n In the event that nothing comes to fruition by the end of September, on October 1, Attorney General Jeff Sessions will have free reign to attack the cannabis industry with all of the Department of Justice\u2019s resources available to him as the nation\u2019s top law enforcement official.\u00a0 There will be nothing to stop him from targeting state medical marijuana programs.<\/p>\n Sessions,\u00a0one of the truest holdouts for a return to Reagan\u2019s War on Drugs<\/a>, has never minced words when it comes to marijuana. He even openly admitted that his opinion of the Ku Klux Klan was ruined\u00a0only<\/i>\u00a0when he found out they smoked pot. And perhaps equally terrifying, Sessions\u00a0recently sent Congress a letter urging it to vote down the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment<\/a>\u00a0and allow him to start prosecuting medical marijuana providers.<\/p>\n The cannabis industry\u2019s leading voice in Congress, the National Cannabis Industry Association,\u00a0issued a statement<\/a>\u00a0on the possible grim prospects ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Committee\u2019s decision to prevent consideration of the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer amendment attempts to move the country backward at a time when the vast majority of voters are looking to Congress to reform our nation\u2019s outdated marijuana laws,\u201d said NCIA Executive Director Aaron Smith. \u201cNine out of 10 Americans support legal access to medical cannabis, making it perhaps the least controversial issue in American politics. Voters of all political persuasions generally agree the federal government should not be using limited resources to interfere in state medical cannabis laws. Shutting down regulated medical cannabis businesses will result in licensed patients resorting to the criminal market to obtain their medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> are you worried about the federal prosecution of medical marijuana programs?<\/p>\n The post Medical Pot Protections in Jeopardy on Capitol Hill<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Only more one stage in the legislative process keeps Jeff Sessions away from prosecuting state medical marijuana programs. In a late-night vote on Wednesday, the House Rules Committee blocked the full chamber of Congress from holding a vote to extend medical marijuana protections and several other cannabis-related amendments to nextContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40,50,83,80,1534,96,1535,1536,81,700,42,97],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19215,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19214\/revisions\/19215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Medical Pot Protections in Jeopardy on Capitol Hill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"