Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, today spoke in favor of and voted for the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act. The measure removes cannabis from the list of federal controlled substances, raises revenue from sales to reinvest in communities disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs and expunges the records of federal criminal marijuana offenses.
The vote on passage was 220 to 204.
In a speech from the House floor before the vote, Congressman Cohen said in part:
“It’s no secret that the war on drugs failed…Marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol…Congress has been out of step on this issue. It’s called ‘cultural lag.’ We’re finally coming around to re-scheduling it from Schedule 1, where it’s in a class with heroin and methamphetamines, which is absurd…We must re-schedule marijuana. We must decriminalize it at the federal level. Now is the time to do some remedies to federal marijuana laws. This is an historic time. Let’s move forward and do the right thing.”
Original source can be found here.
