This week, the United States House of Representatives could be voting on the federal legalization of cannabis. Representative Jerry Nadler announced on Monday that the house judiciary committee had posted a markup for HR 3884 a.k.a. the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act — which means a vote could go down as early as Wednesday.
“I look forward to moving this legislation out of the House Judiciary Committee, making it one step closer to becoming law,” said Nadler in a press release.
From the get-go, the MORE Act looked like it had a better-than-average chance at making it through the legislative gauntlet than its many predecessors. The bill was created and introduced by Nadler of New York, who is the judiciary committee chair.
Pressure has increased on Congress to pass federal legalization ever since it approved the SAFE Act. That bill guaranteed banking protections for cannabis companies and financial institutions, raising many questions about why similar relief has not been given to cannabis users and the United States’ sizable population of individuals incarcerated on drug-related charges.
Primary on the MORE Act’s priorities is the re-classification of cannabis to remove it from the Controlled Substances Act and Schedule I category that defines it as a material with no medicinal value. It would empower states to craft their own regulations when it comes to cannabis.
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