EDITOR’S NOTE: NJ Cannabis Insider is hosting an in-person day-long conference and networking event Sept. 15 at the Carteret Performing Arts Center, featuring many of the state’s leading power players. Early-bird tickets now on sale.
Marijuana would be decriminalized and states would decide whether to make it legal. Nonviolent marijuana crimes would be expunged. A federal tax would help communities hardest hit by the War on Drugs.
The 30-page outline of what is being called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act was released Wednesday by U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, who has led the fight in the Senate to end the federal prohibition against marijuana; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who sets the Senate agenda; and Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., whose committee has jurisdiction over taxes.
The senators emphasized that their proposals were just that — suggestions and ideas — and not legislation, which would be drafted only after hearing from interested parties. They set a deadline of Sept. 1 for responses before they wrote the legislation.
The senators said that their efforts were built upon the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or MORE Act, which passed the House in December and was reintroduced in May.
That legislation would remove cannabis’ classification as a Class 1 drug along with heroin, require federal courts to expunge prior marijuana convictions, and impose a 5% federal tax on marijuana and marijuana products to help those hurt by the existing drug laws.
The Senate has stood in the way of efforts to change federal laws on cannabis, but Democrats are in control for the first time since 2015 and Booker, Schumer and Wyden announced in February that they would propose legislation to tackle the issue.
While Congress failed to act, an increasing number of states have legalized marijuana, including New Jersey this year. Cannabis now is legal in 37 states for medical use and 18 states for recreational use. And that has led to the creation of a $17.5 billion industry with more than 320,000 employees.
Both the House bill and the Senate proposal also have emphasized the social justice aspects of ending the war on drugs. Enforcement of laws against possession of weed has fallen heaviest on Blacks and other minorities, and on poorer communities.
“For decades, our federal government has waged a War on Drugs that has unfairly impacted low-income communities and communities of color,” Booker said.
“While red and blue states across the country continue to legalize marijuana, the federal government continues to lag woefully behind. It is time for Congress to end the federal marijuana prohibition and reinvest in communities most impacted by the failed War on Drugs.”
Indeed, the Senate proposal begins this way: “The War on Drugs has been a war on people — particularly people of color. The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act aims to end the decades of harm inflicted on communities of color by removing cannabis from the federal list of controlled substances and empowering states to implement their own cannabis laws.”
Toward that end, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Food and Drug Administration would regulate weed rather than the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
Besides expunging convictions, the bill would allow those behind bars for non-violent federal marijuana crimes to petition for resentencing, and would tax marijuana to create an “Opportunity Trust Fund” to help communities hurt by the War and Drugs and to make it easier for minorities to open marijuana businesses.
The proposal would require customers to be 21 to legally buy cannabis and limit purchases to 10 ounces or less. It would mandate studies on the health impacts of marijuana, both good and bad, and seek to establish standards to determine when someone using cannabis is driving while impaired.
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Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him at @JDSalant.
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