Chuck Schumer presses for federal marijuana reform after New York legalization

In the wake of New York’s decision to legalize marijuana earlier this week, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says he is ready to move forward with federal marijuana reform.

In an interview with Politico, published on Saturday, Schumer said he expected President Joe Biden’s views on cannabis legislation to evolve, but whether or not that happens, “at some point, let’s move forward, period.”

The details of a reform bill are still unclear – Schumer told Politico that “you will have to wait and see” – but indicated that a “comprehensive” measure is on the table.

“What we want to do is to first present our comprehensive project and then start to sit down with people who do not advocate it on both sides,” said Schumer. “We would certainly hear some suggestions if that brings more people on board. This is not to say that we are going to throw away things like record deletion – [things that are] very important to us – just because some people don’t like it. “

Whatever the final proposal, Schumer told Politico that he is “personally in favor of legalization. And the bill that we will present goes in that direction ”.

As of this month, 15 states plus Washington, DC, have legalized recreational marijuana use and many more have decriminalized the drug, legalized medical marijuana, or both.

According to the Politician, more than 40% of the US population lives in the 15 states where marijuana is now legal; however, the drug is still illegal at the federal level.

Biden, meanwhile, said he supports decriminalizing the drug and leaving recreational use to states, according to The Verge.

As German Vox Lopez explained in 2019, there is a difference between decriminalizing marijuana and legalizing it all at once.

According to Lopez, “decriminalization generally eliminates prison or jail time for limited marijuana possession, but some other penalties remain in effect, treating a minor marijuana offense more like a minor traffic offense.”

Legalization, however, is broader and “is generally considered to remove all penalties imposed by the government for possession and use of marijuana. In most cases, but not all, legalization also paves the way for the legal sale and domestic cultivation of marijuana. ”

New hope for marijuana legislation in the Senate

In December 2020, the Democratic-led House voted 228 to 164 to pass the Marijuana Opportunities, Reinvestment and Purge Law (MAIS), which would legalize marijuana in the US. Vice President Kamala Harris, then a senator, sponsored the Senate version of the bill, but he was never voted in the then Republican-controlled chamber.

However, with Schumer now holding the hammer of the Senate majority leader, the prospects for a similar bill are much more encouraging. In response to a question from the Politico this week, Schumer suggested that there are Republican senators who “support the removal of cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act”.

Furthermore, he said, “the fact that all members will know as soon as we present this legislation – not only that it has my support, but that it will be put to a vote – will help to move forward in a very strong way.”

Some experts are less sure – John Hudak, the deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution, who also wrote a book on marijuana, told The Verge that he does not believe that legalizing marijuana has votes to survive the obstruction in the Senate – but cannabis reform remains widely popular with voters.

Marijuana legalization is incredibly popular in the US

Public support for marijuana legalization has steadily increased over time, according to Gallup, and peaked in 2020, with 68% of Americans supporting the policy.

The specific bill passed by the House last year is also quite popular: according to Morning Consult, 66% of all voters said they supported the MORE Act in December 2020.

And while Republicans lag behind independents and Democrats in their support for legalization, the bill has majority support even among Republican voters: 51 percent of Republicans say they support the legislation in some way or strongly, although only five Republican representatives have voted in favor.

According to Schumer, this widespread support, as well as the success of legalization at the state level, helped to shape his current position on marijuana legalization.

“The legalization of the states worked very well,” he told Politico. “They were a huge success. The horrible parade never happened and people had more freedom. And people in those states look very happy. … When a state like South Dakota votes by referendum to legalize, you know something is out there. “