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President Joe Biden is again proposing to keep blocking Washington, D.C. from legalizing marijuana sales as part of the budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2023 that he sent to Congress on Monday. To the relief of advocates, however, he again kept a separate rider intact to protect legal medical cannabis programs from federal intervention.<\/p>\n
Advocates and lawmakers expressed frustration and disappointment when the president\u2019s last budget failed to remove the D.C. rider<\/a>, which was sponsored in Congress by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) and has continued to be annually renewed. It prevents D.C. from using its local tax dollars from implementing a system of legal adult-use sales even though local voters approved a legalization ballot measure in 2014.<\/p>\n Both the House and Senate appropriators removed that language from their Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations legislation in spite of Biden\u2019s request. However, it was ultimately included in a bicameral omnibus spending bill<\/a> that was introduced by congressional leaders earlier this month and will remain in effect until at least the end of September.<\/p>\n Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) slammed the president\u2019s action in a press release.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a hard time reconciling the administration\u2019s strong support for D.C. statehood, which would give D.C. not only voting representation in Congress but also full local self-government, with a budget that prohibits D.C. from spending its local funds on recreational marijuana commercialization,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cWith Democrats controlling the White House, House and Senate, we have the best opportunity in over a decade to enact a budget that does not contain any anti-home-rule riders.<\/p>\n The latest Biden budget<\/a> separately stipulates that D.C. cannot use federal funding to \u201cdistribute any needle or syringe for the purpose of preventing the spread of blood borne pathogens in any location that has been determined by the local public health or local law enforcement authorities to be inappropriate for such distribution.\u201d That seems to contravene the administration\u2019s stated support for harm reduction services<\/a>.<\/p>\n That said, the budget proposal for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) does notably move to \u201cremove the word \u2018abuse\u2019 from the agency names within HHS\u2014including the Substance use And Mental Health Services Administration, the National Institute on Alcohol Effects and Alcohol-Associated Disorders, and the National Institute on Drugs and Addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIndividuals do not choose to \u2018abuse\u2019 drugs and alcohol; they suffer from a disease known as addiction,\u201d the administration said<\/a>. \u201cIt is a high priority for this Administration to move past outdated and stigmatizing language that is harmful to the individuals and families that suffer from addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n On another positive note for advocates, the 2023 budget proposal maintains a separate rider that prevents the Justice Department from using its funds to interfere in the implementation of medical cannabis programs in states and territories.<\/p>\n \u2014 Past administrations\u2014both Democratic and Republican\u2014have proposed scrapping that language. President Donald Trump and President Barack Obama\u00a0each called for ending the policy<\/a>\u00a0as part of their budget proposals. But\u00a0Congress has consistently upheld it regardless<\/a> since it was first enacted in 2014.<\/p>\n The House on several occasions has approved an even more expansive amendment that would have provided protections for all state and territory marijuana programs<\/a>, rather than just medical cannabis systems. But the Senate has not followed suit and the provision has never been included in final spending legislation sent to the president.<\/p>\n When Trump signed that large-scale spending legislation in 2019, he attached a statement that said he is\u00a0empowered to ignore the congressionally approved medical cannabis rider<\/a>, stating that the administration \u201cwill treat this provision consistent with the President\u2019s constitutional responsibility to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n Advocates were initially optimistic that Biden would propose removing the other long-standing rider on the District of Columbia, but he kept it in again in spite of the fact that he did push to remove separate, D.C.-specific language blocking the city from using its funds to provide abortion services.<\/p>\n The inconsistency with which Biden\u2019s budget approaches D.C. is all the more interesting given that while the president has said repeatedly that states should be empowered to make their own decisions regarding adult-use legalization\u2014and he also supports statehood status for the District\u2014he wants to prevent it from having that same right.<\/p>\n Also again\u2014and perhaps unsurprisingly\u2014Biden did not propose gutting the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) as Trump did. The former president called for a roughly 90 percent cut in the agency\u2019s budget<\/a>\u00a0in his proposals, but Congress did not follow suit. Biden, meanwhile, helped establish the drug czar\u2019s office during his time in the Senate.<\/p>\n Biden\u2019s\u00a0budget<\/a> also includes an estimated $16 million in funding to support industrial hemp production for 2023 and proposes to continue longstanding riders protecting state programs from federal intervention.<\/p>\n Bipartisan Lawmakers File Amendments To Federal Marijuana Legalization Bill Up For House Vote This Week<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post New Biden Budget Keeps Ban On D.C. Marijuana Sales But Preserves State Medical Cannabis Protections<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden is again proposing to keep blocking Washington, D.C. from legalizing marijuana sales as part of the budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2023 that he sent to Congress on Monday. To the relief of advocates, however, he again kept a separate rider intact to protect legal medical cannabisContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":53883,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53882"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53884,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53882\/revisions\/53884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: New Biden Budget Keeps Ban On D.C. Marijuana Sales But Preserves State Medical Cannabis Protections<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"