The top Democrat in the U.S. House says the Biden administration’s move to reschedule marijuana is a “step in the right direction,” but it should be followed up with congressional action such as passing a legalization bill that was reintroduced on the Senate side this week. A top GOP leader, on the other hand, is voicing opposition to even the modest proposal to reclassify cannabis.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said during a press briefing on Wednesday that he supports both the administrative reform that the Justice Department announced—moving to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA)—and the legislation filed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and 17 Democratic colleagues to end prohibition altogether.
Jeffries said he’s been “long involved in the effort to try to deschedule marijuana and break the back of the prison industrial complex and mass incarceration in the United States of America,” adding that it was an “honor” to work on a bipartisan basis during the last administration to enact sentencing reform.
Jeffries and Schumer also previously introduced companion versions of a separate cannabis legalization proposal called the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act.
With respect to rescheduling, Jeffries
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