Schumer aims to leverage Biden’s cannabis rescheduling
Senate Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, are pushing to federally legalize marijuana following the Biden administration’s plan to reclassify it. This move offers Congress an opportunity to advance cannabis reform. Legalization advocates view the reclassification as crucial and long overdue. Senate Democrats, under the leadership of Chuck Schumer, are advocating for the federal legalization of marijuana in response to the Biden administration’s intention to reclassify it. This development presents Congress with a chance to progress in cannabis reform. Supporters of legalization consider this reclassification a vital and overdue step.
Senate Democrats are reviving a long-standing endeavor to federally legalize marijuana after the Biden administration said it would reclassify the drug as a less dangerous one.
Marijuana legalization proponents, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), see an opening for Congress to piggyback off the move.
“Reclassifying cannabis is necessary, and it’s a long overdue step. But it is not the end of the story,” Schumer told reporters. “It’s time for Congress to wake up to the times and do its part by passing the cannabis reform that most Americans have wished for.”
Schumer, along with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), reintroduced on Wednesday the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act. The measure would go far further than the administration by ending the federal cannabis prohibition and descheduling marijuana to remove it from the Controlled Substances Act.
Under the bill, states would be able to create their own cannabis laws and automatic expungement of related nonviolent crimes would kick in.
The Drug Enforcement Administration on Tuesday proposed rescheduling marijuana as a Schedule III drug rather than a Schedule I.
The bill’s reintroduction just one day after the DEA’s announcement was coincidental and not preplanned, according to a senior Democratic aide.
“Young people in this country, African Americans, Latinos, can’t get jobs for doing the same things that presidents and senators and congresspeople have done. It’s the height of hypocrisy,” Booker said. “Thank God it is being rescheduled, but what does that mean for the 25-year-old that did the same thing that kids at elite institutions do but now has a criminal arrest? Does it alleviate his problem? No, it doesn’t.”
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However, Senate Democrats currently lack support from Republicans and even some fellow Democrats to advance the legislation. The GOP has a long-standing opposition to legalizing the drug federally.
Wyden argued descheduling cannabis and leaving it up to the states should be a “Republican dream.”
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