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Bipartisan lawmakers are expressing frustration after a series of marijuana reform amendments failed to make it through a key House committee<\/a> on Monday, complicating efforts to promote veterans\u2019 medical access and provide protections for public housing residents from being evicted over cannabis.<\/p>\n The initial plan was to attach measures to a large-scale appropriations bill that would block the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from enforcing its current policy of prohibiting VA doctors from recommending medical cannabis to veterans, as well as a directive that currently bars the department from covering medical cannabis costs.<\/p>\n But on Monday, the House Rules Committee ultimately declined to make either of a pair of bipartisan amendments on the issue in order for floor consideration, with certain members arguing that the reform proposal was not germane to the appropriations process. Co-chairs of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus issued a joint statement on Tuesday criticizing the inaction amid an urgent need to meet the moment for veterans.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the responsibility to provide our veterans with the care and treatments they need to overcome the wounds of war,\u201d Reps. Dave Joyce (R-OH), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Brian Mast (R-FL) said. \u201cOur outdated federal cannabis laws are interfering with our ability to fulfill that responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, despite the strong, bipartisan support behind increased medical cannabis access for our veterans, Congress is allowing that interference to fester,\u201d they said. \u201cWe will not rest until Congress has addressed the perverse impact that failed federal prohibition is having on our nation\u2019s heroes and their health.\u201d<\/p>\n The measure was essentially meant to combine the intent of two standalone bills sponsored by the CCC co-chairs: the Safe Harbor Act and the Veterans Equal Access Act. (Separately, an amendment did pass the House<\/a> last week as part of a defense bill would tackle the issue of allowing VA doctors to issue medical cannabis recommendations to veterans.)<\/p>\n In Rules, another pair of amendments from Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), with cosponsorship from Blumenauer and Lee, were separately withdrawn ahead of Monday\u2019s meeting. The measures would have prevented the use of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds to enforce the federal prohibition on medical and recreational cannabis use or possession in federally assisted public housing.<\/p>\n The congresswoman told Marijuana Moment in a phone interview on Tuesday that, even with a Democratic majority in the chamber, they decided to pull the amendments because they still needed to \u201cbuild the necessary support\u201d for the reform.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think we can build it, but we haven\u2019t gotten that yet,\u201d Norton said, adding that \u201ccannabis is still controversial\u201d on Capitol Hill and \u201cthe president still has misgivings\u201d about the issue.<\/p>\n \u2014 To be sure, while President Joe Biden said over the weekend that he doesn\u2019t believe people should be in prison over marijuana and that his administration was \u201cworking on\u201d plans to fulfill cannabis campaign pledges<\/a>, he remains opposed to adult-use legalization and has included a rider in his last two budget proposal that blocks the congresswoman\u2019s district from implementing cannabis sales.<\/p>\n The House has again removed that prohibitive language from the appropriations legislation for Fiscal Year 2023. And Norton said that she\u2019s \u201cfairly optimistic\u201d that the Senate will follow suit this time around. She also said that she was \u201cvery encouraged by [the president\u2019s] more recent comments\u201d on cannabis clemency.<\/p>\n But even so, the lack of HUD protections for cannabis consumers in the minibus represents a setback. \u201cIt\u2019s about communicating to colleagues,\u201d Norton said of her next steps to advance the reform.<\/p>\n HUD said last year in a letter to the congresswoman that it is\u00a0required to continue denying federally assisted housing<\/a>\u00a0to people who use marijuana, even if they\u2019re acting in compliance with state law.<\/p>\n Norton sent a letter to HUD Sec. Marcia Fudge, imploring the department to use executive discretion and not punish people over cannabis in legal states. But HUD\u2019s response was clear: It said that \u201cconsistent with federal law, HUD prohibits the admission of users of marijuana to HUD assisted housing, including those who use medical marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Rules Committee on Monday also rejected two other drug policy amendments to the spending package. One sponsored by Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) would have reduced funding for an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program by $32 million and increased the National Forest System budget by $25 million in order to \u201csupport enforcement and remediation of illegal marijuana trespass grow sites on federal lands.\u201d<\/p>\n The other, from Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH), would have simplified and streamlined the federal registration process to study Schedule I drugs such as cannabis and certain psychedelics while also permanently classifying fentanyl-related substances in that restrictive category.<\/p>\n The bills that these amendments could have been attached to already contain a number of relevant reform measures. For example, there are provisions to protect banks that work with state-legal marijuana businesses from being penalized by federal regulators, safeguard tribal cannabis programs and remove certain restrictions on marijuana advertising in legal states. In one bill, appropriators have also excluded a long-standing rider that has prevented Washington, D.C. from implementing adult-use cannabis sales.<\/p>\n The Rules Committee must still also advance a second, separate package of spending bills that already contain a wide range of cannabis and psychedelics provisions. For example, a key rider that the Appropriations Committee\u00a0recently voted to include in one of those bills<\/a>\u00a0would protect state, U.S. territory and tribal marijuana programs from Justice Department interference.<\/p>\n Lawmakers on the panel also took up a separate defense bill earlier this month,\u00a0making in order key cannabis and psychedelics amendments<\/a>, many of which passed on the floor last week. For example, the House approved Perlmutter\u2019s marijuana banking measure, including it as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).<\/p>\n Top Federal Drug Agency Details Plan To Award One New Marijuana Supplier Contract For Research Purposes<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Bipartisan Lawmakers Blast Congressional Inaction On Marijuana Reform For Veterans And Public Housing Residents After Committee Setback<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Bipartisan lawmakers are expressing frustration after a series of marijuana reform amendments failed to make it through a key House committee on Monday, complicating efforts to promote veterans\u2019 medical access and provide protections for public housing residents from being evicted over cannabis. The initial plan was to attach measures toContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":55981,"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\/55980"}],"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=55980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55982,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55980\/revisions\/55982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Bipartisan Lawmakers Blast Congressional Inaction On Marijuana Reform For Veterans And Public Housing Residents After Committee Setback<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"