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The Congressional Cannabis Caucus Has New Leaders As The Push For Federal Reform Continues Into 2025

Travis Warner M.D.



From toxifillers.com with love

The two Democratic leaders of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus are retiring at the end of the session this week, and new pro-legalization co-chairs have been named to replace them.

Outgoing Cannabis Caucus co-chairs Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Barbara Lee (D-CA) will be handing the mantle over to Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to help advance marijuana reform in the next session.

And while the departure of Blumenauer and Lee represents a loss for the cannabis movement they helped to build—with both members strongly advocating for both comprehensive and incremental reform proposals over their tenure on Capitol Hill—their replacements share strong pro-legalization records.

Blumenauer separately told Marijuana Moment earlier this year that he doesn’t intend to bow out of the reform effort altogether even if he’ll no longer be in Congress.

On the Republican side of the bipartisan caucus, Reps. Dave Joyce (R-OH) and Brian Mast (R-FL) will continue to serve in their current co-chair roles.

The latest additions, first reported by Politico, could help inform the cannabis debate heading into 2025, so here’s where Titus and Omar stand on marijuana policy:

Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV)

Titus, who voted in favor of a state ballot initiative legalizing adult-use marijuana in Nevada in 2016—as well as congressional bills to end federal cannabis prohibition—has been a longstanding advocate for reform.

In June 2023, the congresswoman sponsored a bill to provide $150 million in marijuana research funding for universities over five years, while allowing those institutions to obtain cannabis for studies through partnerships with state regulatory agencies and law enforcement.

She also signed a letter alongside 20 other lawmakers urging the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to “promptly remove marijuana from Schedule I,” while recognizing that the agency may have been “navigating internal disagreement” on the issue.

After the Biden administration initiated that rescheduling process, she commented that it “made no sense that marijuana was classified the same as heroin and LSD,” adding that reclassifying the drug “will help researchers study the medical benefits of cannabis and legal businesses combat the unregulated black market.”

Titus and other lawmakers also sent a letter to top Biden administration officials in 2023, demanding transparency in the marijuana scheduling review.

In December 2024, she was among those who called on President Joe Biden to significantly expand his marijuana pardons and issue updated guidance to formally deprioritize federal cannabis prosecutions before his administration comes to an end.

During the first Trump administration—after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded Obama era guidance on federal cannabis enforcement priorities—Titus was an original cosponsor of a bill that would have would effectively prevented the Justice Department from cracking down on people who are following state marijuana laws.

In 2023, Titus introduced a bipartisan amendment to a spending bill that would have provided protections for military veterans who use medical marijuana in legal states, as well as doctors at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) who issue recommendations to allow participation in such programs.

Later in the year, she signed onto a letter urging House appropriators to ensure that the large-scale spending bill maintains the cannabis and veterans language.

Each of the three times that a spending bill amendment to protect all state cannabis programs from federal intervention—in 2015, 2019 and 2020—the congresswoman voted in favor of the reform.

She also supported a federal legalization bill both times it went to the House floor, and she backed multiple appropriations amendments to protect states with medical cannabis, industrial hemp and CBD programs from federal intervention.

Additionally, she voted in favor of a bipartisan cannabis research bill in 2022, as well as measures to allow marijuana industry banking access. Further, the congresswoman supported appropriations amendments to allow VA doctors to recommend medical marijuana to veterans.

The congresswoman in 2019 challenged the then-acting head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) over a memo explaining that immigrants who work at state-legal marijuana businesses may be ineligible for citizenship.

Titus argued during a hearing of the committee hearing that the cannabis industry is tightly regulated, meaning that employees must generally meet higher standards than in most other businesses. It’s therefore questionable, she said, that DHS regards naturalization applicants who’ve worked in the legal marijuana market as having insufficient “good moral character”  for approval.

In October 2024, Titus toured two Nevada cannabis businesses, thanking the operators for taking time to advise on ongoing challenges the industry faces.

She also met with representatives of major cannabis companies in 2022 to “talk about the development of a regulatory pathway for the sale of hemp-derived cannabidiol.” Titus said, “We need to protect and promote this industry.”

After Nevada sports regulators voted in 2021 to make it so athletes will no longer be penalized over a positive marijuana test, the congresswoman praised the commission’s action, saying, “Anti-marijuana laws are not only an unnecessary burden on athletes’ civil liberties, but they are also rooted in our country’s racist past.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)

In 2019, Omar made the case that marijuana legalization must happen at the federal level so that individual states aren’t able to continue to disproportionately enforce prohibition against communities of color.

She said “it’s important for us to [legalize cannabis] federally and not allow for the states to pick and choose, because what happens is you will have a state where someone is publicly and professionally able to profit, and in the next state someone could be sentenced to life for it.”

Omar—who cosponsored legislation to deschedule cannabis and penalize states that carry out prohibition in a discriminatory way, as well as a separate bill that would mandate the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) study the therapeutic potential of cannabis for veterans—said the country is now having “the broader conversation after legalization.”

The next year, the congresswoman was among 12 House members who introduced a resolution condemning police brutality in light of law enforcement killings of two Black individuals that have galvanized mass protests. The measure specifically noted the racial injustices of the war on drugs.

In December 2024, Omar also joined 13 other House Democrats who urged President Joe Biden to significantly expand his marijuana pardons and issue updated guidance to formally deprioritize federal cannabis prosecutions before his administration comes to an end.

Also, following Biden’s initial mass pardons, she joined eight colleagues on a letter to Biden, imploring him to extend the clemency to include immigrants who have citizenship status issues. The lawmakers also urged him to go further with cannabis reform, saying he should “prioritize” decriminalization or descheduling.

“Legalize marijuana nationwide. Expunge records for cannabis-related offenses,” Omar said in September 2024. “Let’s end the failed War on Drugs once and for all.”

After her state of Minnesota legalized adult-use marijuana in 2023, the congresswoman said in a statement that this step is “long overdue, and it holds the promise of restorative justice for those who have borne the brunt of the unjust war on drugs.”

“Legalization represents a seismic shift away from the failed policies that have perpetuated this harm for decades,” she said.

Omar and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) also led a sign-on letter to the heads of major banks about discriminatory banking practices against Muslims while noting that some financial institutions have restricted or terminated customer accounts due to “connection to cannabis businesses.”

Like Titus, Omar also supported a federal legalization bill both times it went to the House floor. And she similarly backed cannabis banking reform legislation, as well as appropriations measures to protect state marijuana programs from federal interference.

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