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Over in the Senate, then-Sen. Kamala Harris introduced a similar bill that metaphorically died on the vine.
The House on April Fools' Day again agreed to legalize weed, taking the nation back to lawmakers' December 2020 attempt to toss the federal pot ban.
Let's be blunt: The result will most likely be the same.
Only a few Republicans joined the House majority in Friday’s 220-204 House vote to remove reefer from the 1970 Controlled Substances Act and require courts to expunge convictions of nonviolent marijuana offenders.
To clear the Senate, the bill would need “yes” votes from all 50 Democrats and at least 10 GOP members. Is that possible?
The measure is “unlikely to pass the Senate in its current form," Michael S. Lavery, a senior research analyst at the financial services firm Piper Sandler, told clients, according to Yahoo Finance. "It still requires 60 votes...a level of support we do not believe it has."
More than three dozen states have legalized pot to some degree – including New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. So has the District of Columbia and the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands.
Each jurisdiction has its own criteria for how much, where and under what conditions cannabis can be sold.
Of the 37 states with some form of legalization, 18 allow pot use for both recreational and medical “adult” purposes – among them, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Possessing or distributing it is still a criminal act under federal law, however -- a disconnect that has created misconceptions and a host of logistical obstacles.
The DEA still classifies cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug – a list that includes heroin and LSD -- with “no currently accepted medical use,” as well as a “high potential for abuse.”
The MORE Act approved by the US representatives on Friday would remove federal criminal penalties for growing, possessing or selling weed. It would also require that nonviolent convictions involving pot be expunged. Licensed pot dealers also would be taxed federally.
The bill would also eliminate the barrier that prevents most banks from offering checking accounts, credit cards or other financial services to legal marijuana businesses.
“For far too long, we have treated marijuana as a criminal justice problem instead of as a matter of personal choice and public health,” said House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., the bill’s chief sponsor.
“Whatever one’s views are on the use of marijuana for recreational or medicinal use,” Nadler said, “the policy of arrests, prosecution, and incarceration at the federal level has proven both unwise and unjust.”
Some Republicans, in turn, blasted House Democrats for devoting time to legalizing weed with a war raging in Ukraine, inflation rising and gas prices going through the roof.
“Our country continues to suffer," said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va. "Yet the priority of this Congress now turns to expanding access to addictive, behavioral-altering recreational drugs at a time when our country is also experiencing increased addiction, depression and suicide.”
Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-OR) warned that highways would become more dangerous with increasing numbers of tokers behind the wheel.
“It’s been obvious for years that at some point marijuana was going to be formally legalized,” Bentz said. “What’s deeply and truly disturbing, however, is [the bill's] failure to address the clear consequences of legalization."
That, he said, includes "what this drug does to children, to drivers on our highways, to the mental health of up to 30% of those adults who choose to use marijuana to communities inundated with hundreds if not thousands of foreign cartel operated, unlicensed, out-of-control marijuana grows.”
The House on Friday also approved an amendment by Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey to provide $10 million to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration to explore how police can detect buzzed or stoned drivers.
Like the main House bill, the measure being considered by the Senate would still allow states to decide whether or not they should continue to have their own pot laws.
A group that included Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, Sen. Cory Booker and Senate Finance Committee Chair Sen. Ron Wyden urged their colleagues in the upper chamber to OK the move.
"Hundreds of millions of Americans live in states that have legalized cannabis in some form while it remains illegal at the federal level," they wrote.
The discrepancy "breeds confusion and uncertainty” in both the justice system and the business world, they said.
President Biden campaigned on supporting efforts to "decriminalize cannabis use and automatically expunge prior convictions."
The president believes “our current marijuana laws are not working,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said after Friday’s House vote.
It's always 420 somewhere.
Nine in 10 Americans support legalizing cannabis to some degree -- 31% for medical use and 60% for both medical and recreational use, according to an April 2021 Pew Research Center poll.
Only 8% said marijuana shouldn’t be legal at all.
A Gallup Poll from last November reported a record 68% of Americans in favor of legalization.
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