Breaking: House Committee To Vote On Federal Cannabis Legalization Next Week

A bill to federally legalize marijuana will be voted on by the House Judiciary Committee next week, the panel announced on Friday.

The development, initially reported by Marijuana Moment, comes barely 24 hours after the House voted in favor of a defense spending bill with an amendment that would protect banks that do business with state-legal cannabis companies from being penalized by federal regulators.

"Next week, the Judiciary Committee will hold a markup on a wide array of legislation that will combat the sale of counterfeit products online and limit race-based hair discrimination,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler’s (D-NY) in a press release.

Nadler's Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, to be voted on at Wednesday's panel along with a dozen other pieces of legislation, seeks to “decriminalize marijuana federally and invest in communities that have been disproportionately harmed by the War on Drugs.” 

The MORE Act comes with the backing of over 150 organizations across the country.

“Many of these bills were reported out of the committee and passed by the full House of Representatives last Congress, and I look forward to working with all my colleagues once again to get these bills through Congress and on to the president’s desk,” Nadler said in the press release.

The bill, which would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), also aims to create a pathway for resentencing for those incarcerated for cannabis offenses, protect immigrants from being denied citizenship over marijuana and prevent federal agencies from denying public benefits or security clearance due to its use.

“The Committee will also consider a bipartisan package of bills that will help lower prescription drug costs by taking on certain anticompetitive practices employed by large pharmaceutical companies, legislation that will decriminalize marijuana federally and invest in communities that have been disproportionately harmed by the War on Drugs, and several private immigration bills," Nadler said. "Many of these bills were reported out of the Committee and passed by the full House of Representatives last Congress, and I look forward to working with all my colleagues once again to get these bills through Congress and on to the President’s desk."