A House committee is set to consider new amendments filed in a massive spending bill. The amendments would prohibit drug testing for marijuana of federal job candidates and remove the blockade Washington, D.C. has faced when it comes to legalizing cannabis.
Recently, Democratic lawmakers filed amendments to the Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations bill covering Financial Services and General Government. The House Rules Committee of the GOP will take up these amendments. In recent months, this committee has rejected a number of drug policy reform proposals that were part of spending legislation.
Robert Garcia (D, CA) has submitted an amendment to the FSGG. Garcia has repeatedly sought to use this year’s appropriations process to ensure marijuana-related employment rights for federal employees. The committee has not yet produced a version for the floor vote despite his repeated efforts.
Garcia , for instance, tried to include the reforms in the spending legislation that deals with the Departments of Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies earlier this month.
Garcia also filed the cannabis applicant protection measure for other appropriations measures, covering Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies, that will be discussed by the Rules Committee Wednesday.
The congressman had introduced versions of the same amendment, all of which were blocked, for Departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, State and Foreign Operations, and Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies, (MilCon/VA),.
While the FSGG Bill was being amended, Reps. Eleanor Holmes Norton(D-DC), Earl Blumenauer(D-OR) & Barbara Lee (DCA) submitted an amendment that would remove a long-standing rider which prevents D.C. using local tax dollars for implementing a commercial marijuana market despite the fact that voters in the District approved legalization 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 is yet to schedule a meeting regarding the FSGG Bill.
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Bipartisan legislators have praised the passage by the House of the MilCon/VA Spending Bill, which included separate marijuana and psychoactive measures.
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.
The Senate Appropriations Committee adopted a measure in its version of MilCon/VA legislation which would allow VA doctors to make medical marijuana recommendations. This will increase the chances that the reform makes it into the final package of laws to be signed.
The House also passed two measures on psychedelics, and an amendment to create federal labeling requirements for marijuana interactions with prescription medications, , last month, 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.”
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.
Last month, 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.
Minnesota Marijuana regulators take first step toward setting rules for legal market
Photo by Brian Shamblen.
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