In an exciting turn of events, the U.S. House is expected to vote this week on ending the federal cannabis ban.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., is the lead sponsor of legislation to end the federal ban on cannabis. Reps. Donald Payne Jr., D-10th Dist., and Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-12th Dist., are among the co-sponsors.
This would be the second time to vote to end the federal ban on cannabis for the House.
A vote on the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or MORE Act, will reach the House floor as early as Wednesday, according to the schedule released last week.
The House Judiciary Committee passed the bill last September.
The bill would make legal cannabis operations eligible for Small Business Administration loans and checking accounts, would require federal courts to expunge prior cannabis convictions.
The bill also would tax weed to fund job training, literacy and drug treatment programs, as well as efforts to help those hardest hit by the war on drugs enter the marijuana industry.
The House approved the legislation in the closing weeks of the last Congress in 2020, but it never was taken up in the Senate.
“As we head into the midterm elections, this vote will provide us with a record of where our elected officials stand on this important public policy,” sad Morgan Fox, political director for NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
