A GOP senator who’s been critical of the Biden administration’s process that led to a marijuana rescheduling proposal still says the reform would be a “good thing,” adding that it’d be better to tax cannabis and let licensed businesses access the banking system.
In an interview with AskAPol’s Matt Laslo, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said he felt moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) would be a “good thing,” even as he’s more recently raised procedural questions about the administration’s marijuana rescheduling proposal in a pair of letters to the Justice Department and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Cassidy, who cosponsored a bipartisan bill to streamline studies into the medical potential of marijuana that President Joe Biden signed into law in late 2022, also weighed in on the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act that would protect financial institutions from being penalized by federal regulators simply because they work with state-legal cannabis businesses.
The senator said he’s “supported that in the past because just I think it’s better not to have millions of dollars beneath the mattress,” adding that the federal government should “tax it.”
Late last month, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) was similarly asked about the Biden administration’s rescheduling push and notably said he supports creating a “comprehensive regulatory framework that treats marijuana just like tobacco,” arguing that “the federal government needs to figure out a safe way to allow this market to occur.”
In the interview with Green Market Report, Tillis voiced concerns about public safety issues with vaping products and the presence of illicit grow operations in states that have enacted legalization. But rather than cite those concerns as justification for prohibition, he instead argued that those problems underscore why “we need a comprehensive approach to this” that involves federal regulation.
While supporters of the SAFER Banking Act have argued that the reform would increase financial transparency, it does not include provisions to impose a tax on sales. That would presumably require a more robust regulatory framework under a legalization model, which neither Tillis nor Cassidy have publicly supported.
The banking legislation, which cleared a Senate committee last September and is pending action on the floor, has proven largely bipartisan.
Meanwhile, another Republican senator who recently expressed openness to marijuana rescheduling as proposed by the Biden administration is Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), who signaled he’d be supportive of the reform “from the standpoint of doing more medical research on it.” Moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III would remove study barriers that scientists and federal health officials have long contested.
For his part, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) separately told AskAPol that he backs the marijuana rescheduling effort, as well as the banking reform legislation.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was also asked by Laslo whether she felt that the Biden administration’s rescheduling push could potentially jeopardize legislative efforts to enact the bipartisan cannabis banking legislation.
She said “no,” because that modest reclassification wouldn’t address the underlying issue as “it relates to banking,” which is still “important to do.”
In the background, lawmakers are convening for the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, where Vice President Kamala Harris will be ceremonially nominated after delegates voted virtually to put her at the top of the ticket following President Joe Biden’s decision to bow out of the race.
Delegates also voted on a party platform on Monday touting Biden’s marijuana pardons and rescheduling moves, while calling for broader reform to expunge prior records.
Observers are also awaiting a formal statement from Trump about where he stands on a recreational legalization measure that will be on the November ballot in Florida, where he’s a resident, after he said he’s increasingly open to decriminalization amid the state-level legalization movement.
Harris has a more defined position on cannabis issues heading into the election. While critics, including Trump, have been quick to point to her prosecutorial record on marijuana, she’s also sponsored a comprehensive legalization bill in the Senate and called for legalization as recently as March during a closed-door meeting with cannabis pardon recipients.
Meanwhile, Harris has selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate, choosing a candidate who backed numerous cannabis reform measures in Congress, called for an end to prohibition when he was running for governor and then signed a comprehensive legalization bill into law in 2023.
As president, Trump largely stayed true to his position that marijuana laws should be handled at the state-level, with no major crackdown on cannabis programs as some feared after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Obama era federal enforcement guidance. In fact, Trump criticized the top DOJ official and suggested the move should be reversed.
While he was largely silent on the issue of legalization, he did tentatively endorse a bipartisan bill to codify federal policy respecting states’ rights to legalize.
That said, on several occasions he released signing statements on spending legislation stipulating that he reserved the right to ignore a long-standing rider that prohibits the Justice Department from using its funds to interfere with state-legal medical marijuana programs.
The Democratic National Committee has separately played up the Biden-Harris administration’s marijuana reform platform on social media—but it’s received some pushback after suggesting that cannabis has already been rescheduled and that the country’s “failed approach” to marijuana has now ended.
Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.
