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With a Senate bill to federally legalize marijuana expected to be introduced imminently, a key subcommittee chaired by one of the measure\u2019s prime sponsors has scheduled a hearing for next week on cannabis reform and the harms of criminalization.<\/p>\n
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, chaired by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), will meet on July 26 for a meeting titled \u201cDecriminalizing Cannabis at the Federal Level: Necessary Steps to Address Past Harms.\u201d<\/p>\n
While details are limited, it\u2019s reasonable to assume that senators on the panel will be discussing long-awaited legislation from Booker, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR), which Senate sources recently told Marijuana Moment could be filed as early as this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n That bill\u2014the Cannabis Administration & Opportunity Act (CAOA)\u2014was released in draft form a little over a year ago<\/a>. Advocates and stakeholders have been eagerly awaiting its introduction, and the timeline for the filing has been repeatedly pushed back as the sponsors have worked across the aisle to solicit feedback and build buy-in, but Schumer has made a \u201cpromise\u201d<\/a> that it would drop before the August recess.<\/p>\n Now with a key subcommittee headed by a sponsor scheduling a meeting on the specific issue it addresses, it seems that CAOA\u2019s introduction is likely less than a week away. Marijuana Moment reached out to Schumer\u2019s and Booker\u2019s offices for comment, but representatives were not immediately available.<\/p>\n \u2014 Witnesses are yet listed for the hearing<\/a>, but it can be expected that legalization advocates, as well as opponents, will testify.<\/p>\n While the three main sponsors have spent months discussing the proposal with bipartisan offices<\/a>, there\u2019s still a fair level of skepticism about the prospects of reaching the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the measure through the Senate.<\/p>\n Republican senators are generally expected to oppose a measure to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), let alone one that would also impose a federal tax on marijuana sales and contains progressive social equity provisions such as automatic expungements for prior cannabis convictions.<\/p>\n At the same time, it\u2019s not certain that all Democratic members of the Senate will support the legislation, as several members have been either non-committal or indicated that they\u2019d oppose it based on the original draft language. Democrats hold a slim majority in the chamber, so any dissent within the caucus could compromise the bill\u2019s chances of passage.<\/p>\n The hearing could serve as a temperature check after members get the opportunity to review the revised provisions of the legislation.<\/p>\n Support for comprehensive legalization on the House side is already there, as the chamber voted in April to\u00a0pass a similar measure<\/a>\u00a0called the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act. It stands to reason that CAOA would also enjoy majority support if it manages to clear the Senate.<\/p>\n The year-long push by Senate leadership to get the comprehensive legalization bill to the floor hasn\u2019t just frustrated stakeholders who\u2019ve wanted to see the reform move more expediently; it\u2019s also created tension with advocates and pro-reform lawmakers who\u2019ve argued in favor of passing bipartisan, incremental policy changes like the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act to simply protect financial institutions that work with state-legal cannabis businesses.<\/p>\n That bill has passed the House in some form seven times at this point\u2014most recently as part of a must-pass defense bill\u2014but Schumer and colleagues have faced criticism over their insistence that\u00a0broad reform must be enacted first<\/a>, both as a matter of social justice and because they\u2019ve feared that passing the banking bill first could compromise GOP support for CAOA.<\/p>\n Additionally, there are reportedly plans in the works to\u00a0advance an alternative omnibus cannabis reform package<\/a>\u00a0if CAOA doesn\u2019t garner enough support to be enacted. Offices in both chambers are said to be discussing a plan to advance what would effectively be a marijuana minibus of incremental reforms, addressing issues like cannabis banking protections, Small Business Administration (SBA) access and marijuana research, for example, but stopping short of descheduling cannabis. No formal deal has been reached at this point, however.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a GOP congresswoman, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), filed her own legalization bill last year titled the States Reform Act (SRA) that shares similar provisions to the Democratic-led proposals. It has not received committee consideration, but if the House flips following the midterms, some feel\u00a0it could be a vehicle for reform<\/a>\u00a0should Republican assume control of the chamber.<\/p>\n There are serious questions about the prospects of passing any broad legalization bill in the current congressional climate, especially given the steep Senate vote threshold. But another looming question is what President Joe Biden would do if a legalization measure does ultimately arrive at his desk.<\/p>\n Despite supermajority support for the reform within his party, the president has maintained a firm opposition to adult-use legalization. Instead, he\u2019s voiced support for modest changes such as decriminalization, rescheduling and continuing to allow states to set their own policies.<\/p>\n After more than a year in office, however, he\u2019s\u00a0yet to take any meaningful steps<\/a>\u00a0to make good on those campaign pledges. And days before the House passed the MORE Act in April, then-Press Secretary Jen Psaki reaffirmed that\u00a0Biden\u2019s position on legalization has not changed<\/a>.<\/p>\n That said, the White House drug czar recently said that the Biden administration is\u00a0\u201cmonitoring\u201d states that have legalized marijuana<\/a>\u00a0to inform federal policy, recognizing the failures of the current prohibitionist approach.<\/p>\n The president also made his first substantive comments on cannabis policy this month, reaffirming to reporters that he doesn\u2019t believe that people should be in prison over marijuana and stating that\u00a0his administration is \u201cworking on\u201d cannabis clemency<\/a>\u00a0issues.<\/p>\n D.C. Mayor Signs Bill Providing Workplace Protections For Marijuana Consumers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Senate Schedules Marijuana Hearing In Committee Chaired By Cory Booker, With Legalization Bill Set To Drop Any Day<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
With a Senate bill to federally legalize marijuana expected to be introduced imminently, a key subcommittee chaired by one of the measure\u2019s prime sponsors has scheduled a hearing for next week on cannabis reform and the harms of criminalization. The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, chaired by Sen.Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":55997,"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\/55996"}],"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=55996"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55998,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55996\/revisions\/55998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Senate Schedules Marijuana Hearing In Committee Chaired By Cory Booker, With Legalization Bill Set To Drop Any Day<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"