WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., plans to propose legislation Wednesday to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, putting his weight as majority leader behind a growing movement to unwind the decades-old war on drugs.
The draft bill, called the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act and begin regulating and taxing it, placing federal rules on a burgeoning industry that has faced years of uncertainty. Although states would still be allowed to set their own marijuana laws, businesses and individuals in states that have legalized its use would be free for the first time to sell and consume it without the risk of federal punishment.
The proposal would also try to make recompense to communities of color and the poor for damage from years of restrictive federal drug policy. It calls for immediately expunging nonviolent marijuana-related arrests and convictions from federal records and would earmark new tax revenue for restorative justice programs intended to lift up communities affected by “the failed federal prohibition of cannabis.”
The bill aims to “finally turn the page on this dark chapter in American history and begin righting these wrongs,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who wrote the bill with Schumer and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the chairman of the Finance Committee.
The legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where Republicans are opposed, and it is unlikely to become law in the near future. President Joe Biden has not endorsed it, and some moderate Democrats are likely to balk at the implications of decriminalizing a drug that has been policed and stigmatized for so long.
But in the arc of the public’s rapid reconsideration of marijuana laws, the proposal is a remarkable milestone for legalization proponents. The suggestion that the Senate’s top leader and the chairman of the Finance Committee would sponsor major decriminalization legislation would have been fantastical in the not-too-distant past.
In a speech April 20, the unofficial holiday for marijuana smokers, Schumer said he was trying to prod Washington off the sidelines of a debate in which much of the country was already engaged. Public opinion polling suggests that nearly 70% of Americans support legalizing marijuana. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical use, and 18 states plus D.C. allow recreational use by adults.
Schumer has also made no secret that he believes that Democrats stand to benefit politically from embracing the legalization push, particularly with young voters.
“Hopefully, the next time this unofficial holiday of 4/20 rolls around, our country will have made progress in addressing the massive overcriminalization of marijuana in a meaningful and comprehensive way,” he said in April.
The senators were expected to detail their plans Wednesday at a news conference at the Capitol.
They are expected to propose empowering the Food and Drug Administration and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau at the Treasury Department to begin regulating the production, distribution and sale of marijuana, removing the Drug Enforcement Administration from its current oversight role. Among other implications, the changes would allow marijuana companies already operating in states where it is legal to gain full access to the U.S. banking system.
The legislation would gradually institute a federal excise tax like the one on alcohol and tobacco sales, eventually as high as 25% for big businesses, allowing the federal government to benefit from sales that came close to $20 billion in 2020. The revenue would then be funneled back to communities most affected by federal drug policy and to fund expanded medical research into cannabis that is currently limited by its status as a controlled substance.
One provision, for instance, would establish a cannabis justice office at the Justice Department to help fund job training, legal aid and help with reentry after incarceration. Another program would promote loans to small cannabis businesses owned by members of racially or economically marginalized groups to try to ensure that communities that suffered disproportionately under the war on drugs are not left out of the gold rush that has accompanied legalization.
But the bill would aim to make other, more direct attempts to compensate for the impacts of years of aggressive policing. In addition to expunging past arrests and convictions, it would entitle those who are currently serving sentences for nonviolent federal drug crime to a court hearing to reconsider their sentences. And if enacted, the federal government would no longer be able to discriminate against marijuana users seeking federal housing, food or health benefits.
The Democratic-led House passed similar legislation in December, with a handful of Republicans joining to vote in favor. The vote was the first and only time that either chamber had endorsed the legalization of cannabis, but the bill died at the end of the last Congress. House leaders plan to pass an updated version in the coming months.
Passage through the Senate is likely to be more tricky. Schumer would need to assemble 60 votes, meaning he would need the support of at least 10 Republicans. Although libertarian-leaning Republicans have generally supported ending the prohibition of marijuana, party leaders are likely to oppose the Democrats’ plan, particularly with its emphasis on restorative justice and government intervention in the cannabis industry.
But opposition is not limited to Republicans. Schumer would have to persuade moderate Democrats who are uncomfortable with the implications of decriminalization to support it.
Biden supports decriminalizing marijuana and pulling back the war on drugs, but his views are generally more conservative than many Democrats’ and he has not endorsed Schumer’s proposal. His White House made headlines this spring for pushing out five staff members over their use of marijuana.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.