U.S. House Passes Landmark Bill Decriminalizing Marijuana

American Politicians Have Voted On a Historic Cannabis Bill – Find Out What This Means For Legalization

Plenty of American cannabis users have been waiting for politicians to get cannabis removed from the country’s list of controlled substances. The Controlled Substance Act categorizes hundreds of substances, and applies strict regulations to each one. Cannabis has always been classified as a “schedule I” substance. That means it:

  • Has a “high potential for abuse.”
  • Has “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the U.S.”
  • There’s “a lack of accepted safety for use of the substance under medical supervision.”

Many cannabis users have argued that cannabis does not fall under that criteria. It’s taken a long time for that argument to find a place in American politics, but it looks like the time has come.

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The House Passed a Bill to Decriminalize Cannabis Federally

The House of Representatives just passed a bill called the M.O.R.E. Act – an acronym for Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement. This historic bill proposes that people who have been charged or convicted with non-violent cannabis-related crimes should have their records expunged. It also calls for cannabis to be removed from the Controlled Substances Act.

After much suspense and delay, the bill has finally been passed. In what may come as a surprise, five Republican voters and one independent voter joined in support of the bill.

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“The federal government has lied to the people of this country about marijuana for a generation,” said Matt Gaetz, a Republican representative from Florida. “If we were measuring the success of the war on drugs, drugs have won.”

Not Everyone Celebrated The Bill’s Passing

While many celebrated the bill’s landmark success, some were critical. For example, Congressman Greg Murphy disagreed with the idea that cannabis shouldn’t be a controlled substance: he called it “one of the most abused substances on the planet.”

Here’s The Bad News

The vote has been called historic by many for the fact that it has brought cannabis so close to being legalized federally. However, there’s a huge hurdle in the way of that happening.

As with any other bill that the House approves, the M.O.R.E. Act must be approved by the Senate, then given final approval from the President. When President-elect Joe Biden enters office, it’s likely that he will approve laws that are geared towards decriminalizing cannabis. However, the Senate is where the problem lies. The Republican Party has a majority of the Senate’s seats, so many speculate that the bill will not pass this phase.

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Still, it’s exciting to see a law that treats cannabis reasonably and fairly to make it so far. Hopefully, the voices of cannabis advocates are heard by politicians more in the future.