BREAKING: The House of Representatives has voted to decriminalize marijuana
The US House of Representatives voted Friday to approve a bill that would decriminalize cannabis at the federal level. It’s a first step toward making the drug legal and attempting to undo some of the damage caused by punitive drug laws, particularly among communities of color. The voting happened along party lines, with 220 votes in favor and 204 opposed.
The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement would remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances and add a federal tax on cannabis products. It would also establish a process to expunge convictions and review sentences for past federal cannabis convictions. The House also added several amendments to the bill, among them a requirement by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to conduct a study on the “Impact of the legalization of recreational cannabis by states on the workplace” and help employers develop best practices in updating their cannabis policies. Another, which was rejected on Friday, would have rescinded cannabis use as a reason for denying a federal security clearance, retroactive to 1971.
The House passed an earlier version of the bill in a lame-duck session in December 2020, only to see it stall in the Senate. But with midterms looming, advocates think the timing may finally be right for Congress to take action. “I feel a lot more optimistic than I did last time around,” Maritza Perez, director of the Drug Policy Action office for national affairs, said in an interview with. “The bill is the same version passed in 2020, with no substantive changes, so hopefully everyone who voted last time will vote in favor again.”
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