A powerful GOP-controlled House committee has blocked another series of marijuana and psychedelic reform amendments to large-scale spending legislation, including a bipartisan proposal to protect all state cannabis programs from federal interference.
The House Rules Committee declined to make in order for floor consideration several marijuana amendments during meetings on Monday and Tuesday. While most of the measures called for modest reforms supported by legalization advocates, the panel also blocked a proposal from prohibitionist Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) that would have prevented the Biden administration from rescheduling cannabis.
The two spending bills that were taken up by the committee this week covered funding for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS) and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (LaborH).
To advocates’ disappointment, the panel declined to advance an amendment to the floor that would have prevented DOJ from using its funds to interfere in the implementation of “any law of that jurisdiction that authorizes the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of marijuana.”
That measure was sponsored Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Tom McClintock (R-CA), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Dave Joyce (R-OH). Earlier versions of the measure have been been approved on the House floor in years
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