Another year, another federal marijuana decriminalization bill proposal? It’s starting to seem that way for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has joined forces with New York representative Hakeem Jeffries on Schumer’s second decriminalization bill in two years.
“The Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act is a phenomenal step forward in terms of social, racial, and economic justice in the context of what many people view as the failed War on Drugs that has been with us for decades,” said Jeffries in a homey video that the men released on Friday as part of the bill’s announcement. They shot the clip in the neighborhood both men grew up in, at Brooklyn’s BRIC arts and culture center.
Central to the bill — which will be introduced in both houses by the dynamic duo — is the re-scheduling of cannabis so that the drug is no longer include on the federal list of controlled substances. That will allow states some wiggle room in crafting their own legislation around marijuana, and alleviate some of the worries of current cannabis providers and users that they could be subject to federal prosecution down the line for their connection to the plant.
It will also dictate a certain level of support for small entrepreneurs in any resulting legal industries. “Let’s not have some big fancy corporation, some big tobacco company make all the money,” says Schumer in the video. The bill will include coordination through the Small Business Administration to support new business owners who are women and/or people of color.
Given the wave of decriminalization measures that have recently passed across the country, timing makes sense for the introduction of the federal bill. Even in the South, certain states are making progress