Republican leaders in Congress really, really don’t want their fellow lawmakers to have the chance to vote on marijuana amendments.
In the latest in a long series of roadblocks thrown up in front of developments on the issue over the past several years, a key House panel prevented four cannabis measures from reaching the floor on Wednesday night.
Three of the proposals concerned military veterans’ ability to access medical cannabis without punishment or hardship, and one was about water rights for marijuana and hemp growers.
All four were blocked by the Rules Committee and its chairman, Pete Sessions (R-TX).
One of the amendments, a move to allow veterans to receive medical cannabis recommendations from their Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) doctors, has previously been approved by both the full House and Senate, but has never been enacted into law.
Sessions and fellow Republicans did not allow the measure to advance to the floor this year.
Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) who led the push for the amendment, along with at least 17 cosponsors, said that too many veterans have been “shamefully treated by the VA,” which forces them to seek medical marijuana recommendations from outside doctors who are often expensive and don’t know their health histories.
“It’s in keeping with trying to discourage free flow of ideas here in the House,” Blumenauer told Marijuana Moment in an interview earlier on Wednesday, anticipating the Rules Committee’s continuing cannabis blockade. “Pretty miserable legacy, and this is an example something that the overwhelming majority of people in both the House and the Senate support. There’s bipartisan support for it. There’s no reason that it shouldn’t be debated.”