A Democratic lawmaker has introduced a resolution in Congress that notes the country’s “moral obligation to meet its foundational promise of guaranteed justice for all,” in part by legalizing marijuana, expunging drug-related records and allowing facilities where people can consume controlled substances in a supervised fashion to prevent overdose deaths.
The legislation, filed by Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), proposes a number of reforms to address systemic issues like mass incarceration, racial discrimination, addiction and homelessness.
Cannabis isn’t the focus of the measure, but it’s included in a section calling for the decriminalization of “behavior and divert cases that do not require confinement” in order to reduce the country’s prison population.
Part of that effort should include “decriminalizing addiction, homelessness, poverty, HIV status, and disabilities, including mental health diagnosis, by legalizing marijuana and overdose prevention sites, declining to criminally prosecute low-level offenses such as loitering and theft of necessity goods, and expunging the records of individuals for all drug-related offenses.”
This marks the fourth Congress in a row that the resolution has been filed. Past versions did not advance to hearings or votes.
The measure also points out that approximately 30 percent of the federal prisoners are serving drug-related sentences.
It adds that “many incarcerated individuals suffering from chronic illnesses often receive little or no treatment, and individuals suffering from substance use disorders face higher rates of overdose in jails and prisons that prohibit treatment drugs such as methadone and buprenorphine.”
Further, the measure calls for the dismantling of the 1994 Crime Bill, which was championed by former President Joe Biden during his time in the Senate and instituted punitive drug policies. The measure should be replaced “with a holistic and community-led public health and safety agenda,” the resolution says.
It also calls for ending the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine.
The whereas section of the proposal emphasizes that “the Federal Government has an obligation to rebuild the American legal system so that it is smaller, safer, less punitive, and more humane.”
Whether the resolution stands a chance of moving in the GOP-controlled Congress is yet to be seen. And while President Donald Trump has previously endorsed modest cannabis reforms such as rescheduling, he’s shown resistance to certain harm reduction initiatives.
For example, Trump signed an executive order earlier this month that’s receiving pushback from the drug policy reform community over directives targeting harm reduction efforts and, specifically, safe consumption programs.
On rescheduling—which would not federally legalize marijuana as Pressley’s resolution calls for—key right-wing influencers have been voicing conflicting positions after the president announced an imminent decision on the issue.
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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.
Earlier this month, 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.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who Trump initially nominated to serve as U.S. attorney general during the current term, has also renewed his call for cannabis rescheduling—saying the “game is over for Democrats at the ballot box” if the president moves forward on the reform.
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.
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