A key congressional committee will vote on an amendment to protect all state, territory and tribal cannabis programs from federal interference on Tuesday, multiple congressional offices tell Marijuana Moment.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) will be filing the amendment during a House Appropriations Committee markup of the Fiscal Year 2023 spending legislation for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CSJ).
Lee and other pro-reform lawmakers such as Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and Tom McClintock (R-CA) had urged congressional leaders to include the broad protections in the base appropriations bill, but that did not come to fruition, despite the bipartisan request.
Now they will again seek to add provisions—which would prevent the Justice Department from using federally appropriated dollars to interfere in the implementation of state, territory and tribal cannabis laws—at the committee level.
Blumenauer, Lee, Holmes Norton and McClintock and 44 other congressional colleagues recently sent a letter to calling on the chairman and ranking member of an appropriations subcommittee to address the issue through the must-pass legislation.
In general, the proposed provisions would block “the Department of Justice from prosecuting those who comply with their state or tribal marijuana laws,” the lawmakers wrote.
A congressional source told
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