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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on Tuesday that he and colleagues are in the process of reaching out to Republican senators to \u201csee what they want\u201d included in a bill to federally legalize marijuana he\u2019s planning to introduce later this month.<\/p>\n
The leader was pressed during a briefing with reporters about the fact that he\u2019s been discussing plans to file legalization legislation for more than a year. The new comments come less than a week after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a separate legalization bill<\/a> from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY).<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope to [file the bill] towards the end of April,\u201d Schumer said, adding that he, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) \u201care talking about it and, in fact, we\u2019re trying to reach out\u201d to other lawmakers about the forthcoming bill.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve reached out already to a few Republicans to see what they want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Schumer said in February that the plan was to introduce the Cannabis Administration & Opportunity Act (CAOA) in April. He and his colleagues first unveiled the legislation in draft form<\/a> for public comment last year.<\/p>\n The leader also recently said in a meeting with activists that he expects committee hearings on the proposal<\/a> shortly after it\u2019s finally filed.<\/p>\n In February, Schumer and his cannabis co-sponsors also circulated a letter asking fellow lawmakers to weigh in<\/a> on the provisions of the bill.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear what kind of GOP input on the bill the senator might be inclined to incorporate to build bipartisan support for the reform measure, but the House bill that passed last week contains similar provisions to the draft CAOA and received just three Republican votes in support.<\/p>\n The senators\u2019 proposal as released in draft form last year would federally deschedule cannabis, expunge prior convictions, allow people to petition for resentencing, maintain the authority of states to set their own marijuana policies and remove collateral consequences like immigration-related penalties for people who\u2019ve been criminalized over the plant.<\/p>\n \u2014 The\u00a0bill\u00a0would also impose a federal tax on marijuana products and put some of that revenue toward grant programs meant to support people from communities most impacted by prohibition who want to participate in the industry.<\/p>\n Further, the legislation would transfer regulatory authority over cannabis from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).<\/p>\n The three senators accepted public comments on the draft to help inform a revised bill for introduction, now expected this month.<\/p>\n Schumer emphasized late last year that he wants to keep the \u201cbig boys\u201d out of the marijuana industry<\/a> in favor of creating opportunities for smaller operators when cannabis is federally legalized, and he said that the upcoming bill would accomplish that.<\/p>\n He\u2019s also stressed that his reform measure will take specific steps to\u00a0restrict the ability of large alcohol and tobacco companies<\/a>\u00a0to overtake the industry.<\/p>\n Also in Congress, a separate bill to tax and regulate marijuana is also in play this session. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) is sponsoring that legislation, and she said in a recent interview that she\u2019s received assurances from Democratic leaders that\u00a0her States Reform Act will receive a hearing<\/a>\u00a0following the MORE Act floor vote.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, on the same day that it was announced that the MORE Act would be heading to the floor again, the Senate unanimously approved\u00a0a bipartisan bill meant to promote research into marijuana<\/a>, in part by streamlining the application process for researchers who want to study the plant and to encourage the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop cannabis-derived medicines.<\/p>\n The House on Monday approved a separate, bipartisan marijuana research bill<\/a>\u00a0that\u2019s meant to streamline studies into cannabis, in part by allowing scientists to access products from state-legal dispensaries.<\/p>\n Congressional researchers separately released a report recently that\u00a0details the challenges posed by ongoing federal prohibition<\/a>\u00a0and the options that lawmakers have available to address them.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters last week that President Joe Biden agrees that \u201cour current marijuana laws are not working,\u201d<\/a> but she declined to directly address whether the president supports House-passed Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act.<\/p>\n Government Policy Makes Psychedelics Research \u2018Extremely Hard,\u2019 Top Federal Drug Official Says<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Schumer Talking To GOP To \u2018See What They Want\u2019 In Marijuana Legalization Bill Coming This Month<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on Tuesday that he and colleagues are in the process of reaching out to Republican senators to \u201csee what they want\u201d included in a bill to federally legalize marijuana he\u2019s planning to introduce later this month. The leader was pressed during a briefingContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":54111,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54110"}],"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=54110"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54112,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54110\/revisions\/54112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Schumer Talking To GOP To \u2018See What They Want\u2019 In Marijuana Legalization Bill Coming This Month<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"