Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer (D) said that bringing marijuana banking to the floor was a matter of getting more GOP votes. He added that this task is made even more difficult because some legislators are afraid their constituents “particularly the older ones” don’t want to embrace reform, despite the overall majority support from voters.
In an interview published by Yahoo News over the weekend Schumer stated that marijuana legalization was an issue that “has come of age.” He added that “the people are our side,” which is demonstrated by the recent Ohio vote that saw a large majority choose to end prohibition.
The majority leader, despite the support for a broader reform at the national level, said modest marijuana banking legislation that passed the Senate Banking Committee in September is still being held on the floor while senators are working to assemble a stronger bipartisan coalition around Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation Banking Act (SAFER).
He stated at various points in the interview that he was waiting for “10 or eleven Republican votes” as well as “three [or] 4 votes.” The former may have been a more general statement about the need to get around 10 GOP members join all Democrats so they can reach the 60 vote threshold to pass the bill. This could refer to his perception of how many Republicans are left in the caucus.
Schumer stated that the Senate was “getting closer” to passing the legislation. He urged viewers, to call their representatives to urge them to support the bill.
“It’s bipartisan. The House has endorsed it. He said that the bill could become law in the near future, but did not give a timeline.
This perspective is different from the one of Sen. Steve Daines, the GOP’s lead sponsor for the SAFER Banking Act (R-MT), whose position was that there were already enough Republican senators in the Senate who would be willing to move the bill forward.
Daines suggested that at this point, the most important question is if the measure has the support needed to pass in the House. He stated last month that the Senate is working with its House counterparts to “get alignment between both chambers.”
Schumer stated that most people have supported legalization. States are leading the charge, and the “scare tactics,” of opponents, about addiction and increased crime, “didn’t match the facts.” Congress, however, has failed to address the issue, because “you still still have a number of legislators that are still in that world.”
He said that they were worried about their constituents, especially the older ones. They’re reluctant to move forward. “But we are making progress.”
Schumer said that the legislation he is working to advance “tries” to “rectify” some of those harms caused by the drug war. “So much was taken from minority communities, in terms human resources, money and everything else because cannabis was overcriminalized.”
He said, “We put provisions in the bill that favour small minority businesses rather than big companies.”
The SAFER Banking Act is a comprehensive bill that legalizes marijuana. It’s unclear if Schumer was referring to this or the comprehensive bill he presented last session. In the banking measure there are provisions that support equity, but Schumer has also talked about the “moral obligation” to further amend it on the floor in order to add provisions for state-legal cannabis expunctions and gun rights to cannabis consumers.
He said, “This bill can do so many things.”
He said that he was not sure how much ending marijuana prohibition will normalize cannabis consumption. He said that “certainly, decriminalizing marijuana will allow people to make the decision to use cannabis without fear of the long arm coming down from the law, and this makes sense.”
We do the same for cigarettes. We do it for alcohol. “We do it for many other things,” said he. “It is just antiquated that we no longer do this for marijuana.”
Yahoo News’ host asked Schumer whether he had ever used marijuana personally. The senator replied that he hadn’t. He pointed out that it was “illegal” back in college.
I didn’t really want to, but I do. “I believe as strongly about it as anyone else,” he stated. “I did not make that decision, but anyone else who wants to do so should be able to without fear of criminal prosecution.”
Al Harrington, former NBA player and owner of the cannabis company Viola , who worked with the players’ union to create a CBD partnership in 2014, took part in the interview. He invited Schumer to sample his cannabis brand if he decided to do so.
The senator gave Harrington thumbs up and laughed.
A coalition of 20 Democratic congressional members is calling on Treasury Department officials, while continuing to push the SAFER Banking Act to be passed, to update federal guidelines to stop financial institutions from discriminating marijuana business owners based on prior cannabis-related activities that have since become legal in states.
Marijuana and Opioids are ‘equally effective’ in reducing pain, with cannabis offering additional ‘holistic’ benefits, study shows
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