The Democratic co-chairs of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus have reintroduced a resolution “urging action to increase equity within cannabis policy and the legal cannabis marketplace,” calling not only for state and local decriminalization but also encouraging the adoption of specific “best practices” around regulated markets.
The measure also expresses the “sense of the House” that President Joe Biden should direct administration officials to lobby the United Nations and its Commission on Narcotic Drugs to “deschedule cannabis from the international drug control treaties, expunge and forgive legal penalties relating to certain low-level marijuana offenses, and treat cannabis as a legal commodity,” effectively ending the near-global prohibition of marijuana.
The Realizing Equitable and Sustainable Participation in Emerging Cannabis Trades (RESPECT) Resolution was introduced by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) on Thursday, along with six other cosponsors, all Democrats. It encourages states and local governments “to adopt best practices and take bold steps” to enact a number of reforms around marijuana designed to address disparities in participation in legal marketplaces and to “address, reverse, and repair the most egregious effects of the War on Drugs.”
The resolution says that people and communities “that have been most harmed by marijuana prohibition
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