A congressional committee will debate two bills to federally legalize marijuana and several other pieces of cannabis research legislation next week, according to a briefing memo obtained by Marijuana Moment on Friday.
A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing on various reform proposals on Wednesday, with witnesses from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) set to testify.
This comes months after the House Judiciary Committee held a historic vote approving a comprehensive legalization bill sponsored by the panel’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). That legislation—the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act—will be one of two descheduling bills the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health will take up.
The memo starts by providing context on the state of cannabis policy in the U.S., outlining research restrictions imposed under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the legalization of industrial hemp, past petitions to reschedule cannabis and public health issues.