WASHINGTON: The Top Democrats senate supports bills that will grow a long-federal ban on marijuana, embrace proposals that have lean opportunities to become law but show increasing public support to decriminalize drugs.
The proposal for legalizing marijuana is not new.
But the majority leader of the Senate Chuck Schumer is a sponsor of efforts launched on Wednesday, underlining how the idea of ​​once-edge increasingly mainstream.
The size will erode the pillar of the war center for decades on drugs, which have disproportionally affected the color community in the United States.
“I will use my influence as a majority leader to make this a priority in the Senate,” Schumer said, from New York, who is the first Senate leader to support such efforts.
” Not just an idea that the time has arrived, it’s been too late.
“The bill will treat marijuana such as alcohol or tobacco, which allows it to be taxed and arranged.
The state can still ban its use.
And those under the age of 21 cannot buy it.
It will remain illegal to sell a significant amount without proper licenses and authorization, like alcohol bootleging.
It will also remove the path for additional marijuana medical research.
But in addition to cleaning up obstacles for recreational use, Advocates said the bill would help the poor and those from the color community that was disproportionately arrested, charged and imprisoned for marijuana crime.
The bill will eliminate federal non-violent beliefs and allow their records to be sealed.
Those who currently present punishments related to violent marijuana can also seek hearing reviews and receive deletion.
“We have our valuable resources used to lock …
black and brown people to do things that the President, Congress and Senators have been done,” said Sen.
Cory Booker from New Jersey, who It is also the Cospageor of the Bills, along with Oregon Sen.
Ron Wyden.
The similar bill has passed the house.
But the steps face a path that is almost non-existent in a narrow divided senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass most of the laws .
Schumer admitted that not all Democrats supported the bill.
It includes President Joe Biden, who said he supports the decriminalization of marijuana but believes that the federal prohibition must remain.
“I have spoken in the past about the president’s view of marijuana.
Nothing has changed and there is no endorsement of new laws today, ” Secretary of the White Press Building Jen PSaki said on Wednesday.
Republicans and influential law enforcement groups will definitely oppose it, too.
“I don’t understand how the Republicans say they are for ‘rights to say’ will not support what my colleagues are talked about,” Wyden said.
“What this bill does is we decriminalize at the federal level, but we don’t need things to legalize.
“Schumer and other sponsors from the bill said their proposal was” DRAF DISCUSSION “which was intended to start a conversation.
Although 18 countries have legalized recreational use and 37 allow for a kind of medical marijuana, the remaining federal prohibitions have created headaches for industry in the state Where he is legal, making it difficult for businesses to get banking and loan services.
Those in the industrial marijuana called Schumer support significant progress.
“That is a big question and I am a realist, ” said Joe Caltabiano, CEO of Choice Consolidation Corp.
and the founder of the Cresco Laboratory.
“It takes a lot to get this bill through Congress.
” Maritza Perez, from the drug policy alliance, said Congress finally pursued where the general public had long ago, those who were punished for violations related to marijuana.
Facing the consequences that changed life, So it is difficult to get a job or receive public allowances.
Earlier this month, American Sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was abandoned from the US Olympic list after a positive exam for marijuana, cost the opportunity when running the relay team in Tokyo, besides its place in a 100 meter individual race.
“Today is a historic day in the sense that we have the majority leader of the Senate introducing bills to regulate and legalize marijuana.
It was great, “said Perez, who was the director at the National Affairs Office for the organization.
“For the public, marijuana has been culturally accepted.
But people forget that more than half a million people are arrested because they belong to marijuana every year.
‘