House votes to legalize weed

Friday’s vote reflects changing U.S. and global views on marijuana over the past decade: Polls show support for legalization has increased 20 percentage points, to 68 percent, since Colorado and Washington state legalized weed in 2012. One in 3 Americans now lives in a state where marijuana is legal for adults. The Red States, including Mississippi and South Dakota, voted to allow medical or recreational marijuana on election day. The United Nations voted earlier this week to ease the restrictions on the marijuana treaty.

Passage of the bill also lays the groundwork for future marijuana legalization policy: a policy designed to tackle criminal justice reform and racial inequality. There were approximately 663,000 marijuana-related arrests in the United States in 2018, or roughly 43% of all drug-related arrests. An ACLU study in April found that blacks are almost four times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than whites, even though both groups are equally likely to use marijuana.

House leaders promised supporters and progressives in 2019 that a the vote on an industry-focused bill expanding access to banking services for cannabis companies would be followed by a broader bill to address the effects of illegal marijuana under federal law for decades. decades.

The MORE Act is that bill: it would remove federal criminal penalties for marijuana, clear non-violent federal marijuana criminal records, provide money to states to clean up marijuana criminal records as well, and create crime programs. grants to help those affected after the entry into force of the Controlled Substances Act. in the Nixon era.

“What we’re doing here is … recognize that there is a long-standing war on civil rights that has been instituted by the Nixon administration,” said Representative Jerry Nadler (DN.Y. ), sponsor of the bill and Speaker of the House. Judicial committee. “And we are eliminating it.”

The MORE law was first introduced in the summer of 2019 and left the House Judiciary Committee last November. Then came the police murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd this year. By June 2020, an AP poll found that 94% of Americans said they think the country’s criminal justice system needs at least some change.

“The smartest thing that has happened to facilitate legalization has been for criminal justice and racial justice issues to come up in the cannabis debate,” said John Hudak, a cannabis policy expert at Brookings. Institution.

Racial justice has always been the motivation for legalization in some areas. But lawmakers have traditionally associated it with arguments about medical benefits for children and veterans, job creation, and increased tax revenue. It is only more recently that lawmakers have changed their tone to emphasize the criminal justice angles of legalization.

“When people ask me ‘What is systemic racism?’ I report our drug laws in this country, ”House Rules Speaker Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) Said this week. “People’s lives have been ruined – destroyed – by possessing only a small amount of cannabis.”

However, many lawmakers have not been influenced. A vote slated for September on the MORE law was delayed as moderates feared voting on the grass without adopting another coronavirus aid package would harm them on election day. And Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, berated Democrats this week for voting on the grass as a bill on the aid from Covid is still pending.

“You would think after a humiliating defeat at the polls this year, where Democrats failed to defeat an incumbent Republican president, that Democrats would understand Americans demanding action on the issues that matter to them,” McCarthy said in a press. conference Thursday.

Ahead of the vote, Republicans, including Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko, said removing marijuana from the controlled substances law would compromise workplace safety. Others noted the lack of research on the health effects of cannabis and suggested reclassifying marijuana under federal law in a way that would facilitate research while limiting its use.

“We all agree that [marijuana] does not belong to the same place on the calendar as cocaine, heroin, these other types of highly addictive drugs, ”said Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.). “I think you would get much more bipartisan support for the measure if you went in that direction.”

When Republicans spoke about the lack of edible or vaping product regulations in the bill during a House Rules Committee hearing this week, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) spoke said regulating a new industry was not the point.

“This bill deals with decriminalizing, at the federal level, possession and distribution – those simple points,” said Jackson Lee. “Let me be clear that we wanted to bring justice to the thousands of people in prison and [who] were excluded from the basic dignity of housing, scholarships and the like. And I think we’ve answered it in this bill.

The Democratic strategy to intertwine changes to federal marijuana laws as a key part of criminal justice reform also sends a message to President-elect Joe Biden. He said people should not be arrested for drug use, but does not support legalization.

“We know the White House will come out next year and focus on the three Cs: Covid, climate change and criminal justice reform,” said David Culver, lobbyist for cannabis company Canopy Growth. “I think that’s why they’re focusing so much on it – because they feel like it’s a really key part of their platform, for Biden’s first term.”

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is the main sponsor of the MORE law in the Senate, and one of the gaps between her and Biden is their stance on legalizing marijuana.

While anti-legalization advocates view Biden’s stance as a victory, the pro-weed mob is hoping Harris will fight their problem if the White House takes action on criminal justice reform.

No one expects the passage through the House to shake the Republican-led Senate’s inaction on marijuana, however. McConnell has said he will not consider full marijuana legislation, and if Republicans retain control after the Georgia Senate run-off, it seems unlikely that MORE will be raised in the Senate.