How does he plan to legalize marijuana?
Sanders‘ proposes to deschedule marijuana, which would completely remove it from its classification under the Controlled Substances Act as highly dangerous and without any medicinal value.
Marijuana is now classified in the most restrictive category under federal drug laws — Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act — along with heroin and LSD.
Historically marijuana has been the victim of bad press, scary stories about the social and moral impact it had on users. Once consider at gateway drug – the first step towards harder drugs – marijuana has recently received a reprieve. Part of its bad press came from the fact that to buy marijuana, you were often required to seek out dealers who often also dealt harder drugs.
But even this is something of an illusion since many marijuana dealers made up a cottage industry, supplementing their income by selling to people they knew at the local bar or even at their workplace.
Over the past seven months cannabis legalization advocates have achieved some remarkable victories in states across the nation. So far 2019 has been a hallmark year.
Those big wins include:
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler and Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris are introducing legislation to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level and repair “the damage done by the war on drugs” as cannabis reform gains steam in Congress.
The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or the MORE Act, would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, decriminalizing the drug and allowing states to write their own policies. The legislation would require pot convictions to be expunged or resentenced.
Sen. Kamala Harris, a top-tier contender in the crowded 2020 Democratic primary field, introduced legislation Tuesday that would decriminalize and tax marijuana — a move that is at odds with the California Democrat's record.
Cannabis stocks were mixed on Thursday, a day after a landmark congressional hearing on reforming U.S. laws that found bipartisan agreement that the current setup is a mess and needs to change.
CannTrust shares took another bath after a report said the company built fake walls to hide from regulators that it was growing unlicensed product.
With a congressional committee set to hold a first-ever hearing on ending federal marijuana prohibition on Wednesday, debate among legalization advocates over which piece of cannabis reform legislation would be the most effective and politically achievable is intensifying.
A key part of that conversation concerns the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act, which would amend the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to exempt state-legal marijuana activity from federal enforcement actions.
A congressional subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for next week to explore reforming federal marijuana laws. The hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security will be held at the Rayburn House Office Building at the nation’s Capitol on Wednesday, July 10.
Governors from 18 states and two U.S. territories are calling on Congress to pass a bipartisan marijuana banking bill.
In a letter sent to congressional leaders on Thursday, the governors said a legislative fix was needed to “remove the legal uncertainty for banks and credit unions, reducing their risk, enhancing public safety, and increasing financial transparency.”
Travel guru Rick Steves told Hill.TV on Wednesday that the federal government should legalize marijuana.
"It's clear it's time for the federal government to recognize that we need to stop the prohibition against marijuana," said Steves, who is a board member at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.