Passage of the MORE Act decriminalizes marijuana at the federal level
On Friday, with the votes of McHenry County’s representation in Congress, the U.S. House passed the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act. The partisan voting grid from California Target Book is below:
According to congress.gov, the MORE Act does the following:
- removes marijuana from the list of scheduled substances under the Controlled Substances Act and eliminates criminal penalties for an individual who manufactures, distributes, or possesses marijuana
- replaces statutory references to marijuana and marihuana with cannabis,
- requires the Bureau of Labor Statistics to regularly publish demographic data on cannabis business owners and employees,
- establishes a trust fund to support various programs and services for individuals and businesses in communities impacted by the war on drugs,
- imposes a 5% tax on cannabis products and requires revenues to be deposited into the trust fund,
- makes Small Business Administration loans and services available to entities that are cannabis-related legitimate businesses or service providers,
- prohibits the denial of federal public benefits to a person on the basis of certain cannabis-related conduct or convictions,
- prohibits the denial of benefits and protections under immigration laws on the basis of a cannabis-related event (e.g., conduct or a conviction),
- establishes a process to expunge convictions and conduct sentencing review hearings related to federal cannabis offenses, and
- directs the Government Accountability Office to study the societal impact of cannabis legalization.
Neither Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (D, IL-14) or Congressman Sean Casten (D, IL-06) issued statements concerning Friday’s vote.
The legislation is not expected to advance in the Republican controlled U.S. Senate, just like most of the partisan legislation the House has passed in the 116th Congress.
The MORE Act can be viewed here.
Wouldn’t that 5% tax be the first Fed sales tax?
The Senate should agree to a 10% tax on pot products, the buyers are mostly left leaning and willing to pay.
User based taxes are definitely preferred to property taxes.
ON CHANNEL 5 NEWS, PAM ALTHOFF WAS ON TALKING ABOUT HOW GREAT THE POT BUSINESS IS DOING. SHE IS THE DIRECTOR OF CANNABIS LICENSE .WILL SHAW MEDIA REPORT THIS, NO. SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS PERHAPS.
Tax a plant at the federal level so the government can give more welfare to black people to own the libtards!
That’s flawless thinking, Nob, and very not-leftist of you!
If Trump and the Republicans had gotten on board with legal weed they would have crushed Biden so bad no amount of cheating would help.
This is a popular policy with people and the GOP should work out something on it.
Amen, Neal.
Trump’s refusal to discuss industrial hemp, medical or recreational cannabis, cost him millions of votes.
Veterans groups all support legal reform.
Any reasonable person can discern cannabis prohibition only worked to the advantage of funding gangs, alcohol and pharmaceutical corporations, lawyers and the prison industrial complex.
Freeing the herb would speak volumes to social justice advocates, and the media.
But Trump is beholden to the wealthiest prohibitionist, casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson. Its ALL about the money….
https://youtu.be/HsklRI1fg28
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Welcome to LaLa land, boys and girls.
Neal, you are 10000000000% correct on this.
It worked for JB, the GOP really needs to stop their archaic view on Cannabis to steal away younger voters from defecting to the Left.
Correcting, My bad, as I guess we both forgot about the Fed sales tax on another plant called Tobacco, and lets not forget Motor Fuel Tax, and there are probably other products that come from nature the Fed has sales tax on.
I never said what my position was on where the taxation on Pot should be spent since almost all gov agencies always spend it somewhere else just like the taxes from the lotteries.
Plenty of people of all races smoke pot, your need to highlight the racial part is telling though?
Thank you Mellow Monk for the youtube link to the late John Prine’s song “Illegal Smile” .
“ Please tell the man I didn’t kill anyone, Im just trying to have me some fun!”
Yeah Gary, let’s get everybody strung out, especially the HS kids, then we can all be happy again and vacantly grin at the evil doings of the Kamala Dictatorship.
Strung out, Mr. Knight?
Not sure what ya mean, please explain.
I can’t imagine that imprisoning adults for using something FAR less harmful than alcohol and tobacco and prescription drugs is somehow better than an “Illegal Smile”.
Cannabis does not correlate to socialism, just a step towards Constitutional Liberty and Justice.
Try getting a ‘real job’ with a ‘drug conviction, it just ain’t right!
I should have inserted the word ‘reform’ after Cannabis in the above comment.
I guess Mr. Knight would prefer folks to be ‘strung out’ by attorney fees, loss of employment and a conviction record for consuming a medicinal herb.
Looking forward to your definition of ‘strung out’ Mr. Knight. Have a smiley day!
Do you really think you get the moral high ground simply by pulling the race card after you just advocated for taxing an item more due to some political calculation involving taxing people you disagree with at a higher rate?
I am talking about the bill, not hypotheticals about what they could do. They voted on something specific.
As to your rebuttal
-Pointing out the government taxes a thing isn’t a great reason to tax another thing. Your original point about property taxes vs sales tax might have some merit on your claim about political theory, although there is no federal property tax so then again not really.
-I don’t want the government to have more money. Most people voted against giving Illinois more money in the last election. We don’t trust government to spend money well.
-I have first hand knowledge of minorities smoking pot — because I have smoked with them — but thank you for that enlightening lesson that non-whites also smoke pot.
-The reason I brought up more spending on blacks is because this bill mentions that. You have to get out your deciphering tool but what do you think they are talking about? Legalization bills all over the country include these provisions. They are called EQUITY or SOCIAL JUSTICE provisions/clauses or something like that.
Who do you think are these “groups impacted”?
It isn’t a secret.
In fact, Democrats are open and loud about this so why are you clutching pearls?
You haven’t heard people talk about reparations or anything like that? Get real bro.
Democrats are the ones obsessed with race and doling things out according to melanin content.
I don’t care what people look like (as long as they are not ugly).
My objection is that they should simply deschedule it and do the expungements.
Why does there need to be more taxes and more welfare?
Why can’t the government just butt out of stuff?
Yet even when they “liberalize” something, they bring heavy government involvement.
Your initial comment made me laugh a bit too because I pictured this outlandish scene where a bunch of township employees were gathered around a table plotting how to stop socialism.
lol.
Thanks for that.
I follow marijuana bills somewhat and see the stupidity everywhere.
A state will make it cost .5 million to start a business and then they go, “Why are there no blacks in this industry?”
Their solution is taxing and redistributing or offering specialized tax breaks for specific groups of people.
It disgusts me.
Maybe these geniuses shouldn’t have put in so many barriers to entry and then people of ALL races would be more entrepreneurial.
Here is an uncomfortable truth.
The reason there is not enough investment in black neighborhoods is due to the crime rates.
If you wanted to see more entrepreneurship and investment in black communities, you’d have to get tougher on crime.
You’d have to do more policing in high crime neighborhoods.
Then, after there is more order and the murder rates in those neighborhoods don’t look like stats from Central America, capital WILL flow.
You can spend all the money you want on social programs and education, but there are still people who shoot toddlers in the head.
You have to take those people off the streets.
Correcting, you are so correct.
Commerce can’t safely proceed with murderers and muggers all over the place.
The politicians, leaders and activists in crime ridden areas won’t listen to reason.
Instead, they’ll beg and scream for businesses to revitalize their areas, while bullets fly nearby. ☹️
The people have spoken, more or less.
Looking at state weed policies, if you take the states that allow recreational, you have 177 electoral votes.
Add full medial use in there, you have another 203 electoral votes.
These 380 votes (70%) aren’t going anywhere.
Thirty five states are now solidly at odds with the Feds.
Call it a day.
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Why stop at gateway drugs.
Legalize heroin, meth, opiods, coke and too.
And LSD!
Rome, circa 2020
With all due respect MsTrumpion, states that have legalized cannabis have lower opiod abuse.
But I agree with you, a gateway cannabis is, from hard drug and alcohol abuse including a myriad of ‘scripts’ used to treat PTSD.
President Trump is a COWARD for not standing up for the veterans and tearing down the wall of prohibition that is killing these people.
It’s BULLCRAP!
THEY SAID…. THE EVILS OF MARIJUANA…
ITS NOW PAYING FOR YOUR FAT ASS PENSION SHERRIF NYGREN.
NO MONEY LEFT.
FOR POT WILL SAVE THE DAY.
GIVE IT BACK NYGREN.
YEAH RIGHT.
First drug your parents probably gave you to feel better was Aspirin.
Then maybe Amoxicillin, or some alcohol based drugs.
Pot isn’t a gateway drug, it’s lower down the list of drugs people take.
Make “Cupid” Casten and Dirty Underpants take a drug test!
Yeah, they botched it. We don’t have smart leaders.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/cannabis/2021/2/23/22297586/infighting-erupts-minority-pot-shop-applicants-draft-legislation-resolve-troubled-cannabis-rollout