With a Senate bill to federally legalize marijuana expected to be introduced imminently, a key subcommittee chaired by one of the measure’s prime sponsors has scheduled a hearing for next week on cannabis reform and the harms of criminalization.
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, chaired by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), will meet on July 26 for a meeting titled “Decriminalizing Cannabis at the Federal Level: Necessary Steps to Address Past Harms.”
Booker and the others wrote a letter to the president asking for marijuana to be removed from the list of Schedule 1 drugs. They also called on Biden to pardon all individuals convicted of nonviolent marijuana crimes.
The letter stated in part, "The administration's failure to coordinate a timely review of its cannabis policy, is harming thousands of Americans, slowing research, and depriving Americans of their ability to use marijuana for medical or other purposes.”
Schumer stressed to rally attendees that he’s working to win bipartisan support for the forthcoming bill he plans to introduce with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ).
“I have invited every U.S. senator—every Democrat, every Republican—to come meet with us and tell us why they won’t support the bill or whether they will, and I’m making good progress,” Schumer said. “I’ve already met with six Republicans, so we can get 10 [and] we can get the 60 votes we need on the floor of the Senate to pass legislation that is so important.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and New Jersey’s Cory Booker released a letter Thursday asking senators whose states have legalized marijuana and those who sit on committees with oversight of federal drug policy to share their thoughts as the three attempt to perfect the legislation.
“Hundreds of millions of Americans live in states that have legalized cannabis in some form while it remains illegal at the federal level,” they wrote.
U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to decriminalize cannabis by removing the drug from the Federal controlled substances list.
U.S. Sens. Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren last week sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland urging that the Department of Justice remove marijuana from the federal Controlled Substances list.
The Democratic senators, from New Jersey and Massachusetts, respectively, wrote that descheduling marijuana is long overdue and “would allow states to regulate cannabis as they see fit, begin to remedy the harm caused by decades of racial disparities in enforcement of cannabis laws, and facilitate valuable medical research.”
There were many years of advocates advocating, lobbyists lobbying and cannabis businesses doing everything but selling cannabis in New Jersey; a fix for one of the prime issues for cannabis on the federal level has been teased just as long.
But there was a victory at the end of all that waiting for cannabis industry proponents. An adult-use marijuana reform package was signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy in February, meaning New Jersey has a green light for a regulated cannabis market.
Barker works as a policy staffer for U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, where he has focused on areas of criminal justice reform and marijuana legalization, as well as the economy and technology. He also who works with the National Action Network civil rights group founded by the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Gov. Phil Murphy will replace one member of the panel to regulate the new cannabis industry with a staffer in U.S. Sen. Cory Booker’s office after the makeup of the commission came under fire from the NAACP, NJ Advance Media has learned.
Charles Barker, who works for Booker in the senator’s Newark office, will replace another Murphy appointee, William Wallace of the United Food and Commercial Workers, according to an administration source.
In a fundraising email to his list of supporters on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) laid out what he called “Democrats’ bold agenda for change this year.”
After first describing plans to tackle climate change and income inequality, Schumer turned to cannabis.