GOP Congressman Files Bill To Reschedule Marijuana As Trump Considers Decision On Reform
From toxifillers.com with love
As President Donald Trump considers a proposal to federally reclassify marijuana via an administrative process, a GOP congressman has introduced a bill that would achieve the reform legislatively, codifying the policy change under federal statute.
This is the fourth session in a row that Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) has filed his “Marijuana 1-to-3 Act,” a reference to the fact that the measure would make it so cannabis would be transferred from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Under a Biden administration-initiated proposal, that’s exactly what would happen at the administrative level—a policy that Trump endorsed on the campaign trial and more tepidly said he was considering at a press briefing on Monday. The president said a decision on the pending cannabis reform would come in the next few weeks.
Steube’s bill, filed on Tuesday, would enact the reform legislatively, which would solidify the policy in a way that could mitigate the risk of legal challenges.
The two-page legislation states that “the Attorney General of the United States shall, by order not later than 60 days after the date of enactment of this section, transfer marijuana…from schedule I of such Act to schedule III” of the CSA.
The bill filing comes one day after Trump was asked about the ongoing rescheduling proposal. The president didn’t commit to seeing through the Biden administration-initiated process, but instead said he saw both sides of the debate and would be reviewing the reform.
In response, two House lawmakers—Steube and Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV)—implored the president to act.
“It makes zero sense that federal law treats marijuana the same as heroin and LSD,” Steube said in a social media post. “It is even more ridiculous that cocaine is technically classified as less restrictive than marijuana.”
“This week, I’m reintroducing my Marijuana 1-to-3 Act to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act. This is a common-sense change that will finally allow real scientific research into its medicinal value and ensure our drug laws reflect reality,” he said. “I urge my colleagues and the Trump administration to get it done.”
Steube was also behind the first cannabis reform bill of the current 119th Congress, filing legislation in February that would protect military veterans from losing government benefits for using medical cannabis in compliance with state law.
As for where Trump lands on the issue, there’s lingering uncertainty.
While he endorsed rescheduling on the campaign trail, he made his first public remarks on the proposal since taking office during a press conference on Monday.
“Some people like it. Some people hate it—people hate the whole concept of marijuana, because it does bad for the children [and] it does bad for people that are older than children,” the president said. “But we’re looking at reclassification, and we’ll make a determination over the next few weeks—and that determination, hopefully, will be the right one.”
Meanwhile, a new political committee that shares the same treasurer as Trump’s own super PAC is pushing the president to follow through on rescheduling marijuana, releasing an ad that highlights his previous endorsement of the reform on the campaign trail.
The treasurer of the PAC, Charles Gantt, is the same person named as treasurer of Trump’s political committee, MAGA Inc., which recently reported receiving $1 million from a marijuana industry PAC that’s supported by multiple major cannabis companies.
That committee, the American Rights and Reform PAC, separately released ads in May that attacked former President Joe Biden’s marijuana policy record in an apparent attempt to push Trump to go further on the issue.
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Separately, a post that recently circulated on social media appears to show that MAGA Inc., which is also referred to as also called Make America Great Again Inc., itself created an ad that touts Trump’s support for “commonsense reform” such as removing cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and letting states set their own policies.
The ad ends with the narrator saying “Donald Trump for president,” however, indicating that it may have been prepared prior to the 2024 election.
The owner of the major gardening supply company Scotts Miracle-Gro recently said Trump has told him directly “multiple times” since taking office that he intends to see through the marijuana rescheduling process.
Trump’s former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also recently predicted that the administration will soon “dig in” to the state-federal marijuana policy conflict, emphasizing the need to “eliminate confusion, not create it” amid the rescheduling push.
Meanwhile, Terrence Cole, who was sworn in last month as the new administrator of the DEA, declined to include rescheduling on a list of “strategic priorities” the agency that instead focused on anti-trafficking enforcement, Mexican cartels, the fentanyl supply chain, drug-fueled violence, cryptocurrency, the dark web and a host of other matters.
That’s despite the fact that Cole said during a confirmation hearing in April that examining the government’s pending marijuana rescheduling proposal would be “one of my first priorities” after taking office.
Last week, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer predicted that Trump would not legalize marijuana, though that is a separate issue from the current rescheduling proposal under consideration.
Meanwhile, a strategic consulting and research firm associated with Trump—Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, LLC—conducted a survey of registered voters that showed a majority of Republicans back a variety of cannabis reforms.
Read the text of the Marijuana 1-to-3 Act below:
Photo courtesy of Max Pixel.
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