A powerful GOP-controlled House Committee has blocked an amendment that would have allowed Washington, D.C., to legalize marijuana in the nation’s capital, and a separate proposal that would prevent federal job candidates from being drug tested for cannabis.
The House Rules Committee refused to allow the floor to vote on the two amendments made to the appropriations bill covering Financial Services and General Government. This is the latest of a number of marijuana reform measures the committee has blocked the House from considering.
The D.C. Amendment was filed by Reps. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Earl Blumenauer and Barbara Lee. The D.C. amendment would have removed the long-standing that prevents the District of Columbia to use its local tax dollars for a commercial marijuana market despite the District voters approving the legalization of marijuana at the ballot box in 2014.
The rider was included in the base bills of both the Republican majority House as well as the Democratic majority Senate that passed through their respective Appropriations committees over the summer. The budget request for Fiscal Year 2024 that President Joe Biden released in March also maintained the D.C. Rider for the third consecutive year.
The Rules Committee also voted to block an Amendment from Rep. Robert Garcia, D-CA. Garcia has been trying to use the appropriations processes this year to protect federal employees who are employed in marijuana-related jobs. The FSGG amendment, like his other spending bills proposals, would have prohibited the use of federal funding to test federal job candidates under covered agencies for marijuana.
Recently, he also filed a version for the reform of appropriations legislation that covers Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, as well as Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies.
Garcia, in an interview with Marijuana Moment, said that federal legalization has been long overdue. In the meantime , he is using his experience as mayor of Long Beach reforming workplace cannabis policies to guide his congressional efforts.
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Garcia and Rep. Earl Blumenauer, (D-OR), a co-founder of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, who announced recently that he would not seek reelection in 2016, filed separately a CJS Amendment to Protect jurisdictions which legalize psilocybin as a therapeutic use.
The GOP-controlled Rules Committee is uncertain about the measure, but the panel allowed separate GOP-led psychedelics bills to be considered in another appropriations package that eventually passed the House.
The House passed two amendments that would allow VA doctors the ability to recommend medical cannabis to veterans. Another would encourage the research of the therapeutic potential of psychedelics such as psilocybin or MDMA.
Last week, the Senate passed a bill that included a similar provision: Allow VA to issue recommendations for medical marijuana to veterans who live in states where it is legal. This sets the stage for a conference with the House.
The House also approved in September a pair of measures for psychedelics, as well an amendment to create federal labeling requirements relating to marijuana interactions with prescribed drugs, as part of the Department of Defense spending legislation.
The House Appropriations Committee attached a report to the spending legislation that includes a separate section stating that “VA clarified that VA statutes and regulations do not prohibit a veteran who earns income from state-legalized marijuana activities from receiving a certificate of VA eligibility for home loan benefits.”
The Appropriations Committee, in another set of reports on spending bills for CJS and LaborH is pushing to allow researchers to study cannabis products that are purchased by consumers in legal states. The CJS report urges the Justice Department to study the effectiveness state regulatory frameworks of marijuana.
In July, the Senate passed a defense bill that included provisions prohibiting intelligence agencies such as the CIA or NSA from denying security clearances solely based on past marijuana usage. Other cannabis proposals such as that of Sen. Brian Schatz, D-HI, to allow medical marijuana use by vets , did not make it into the National Defense Authorization Act.
The Rules Committee blocked more than a dozen amendments on marijuana and psychedelics in the House version of NDAA. This happened in July. This includes a measure that was introduced by Garcia which would have prevented denial of security clearances to federal workers due to prior cannabis use.
In September, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee approved a bipartisan standalone bill that would prohibit the denial or refusal of federal employment and security clearances because a candidate has used marijuana in the past.
California senator plans to file therapeutic psychedelics bill with Republican support following Governor’s veto of broad legalization
Photo by Brian Shamblen.
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