RE:SAFE acttheTransporter wrote: It seems like the democrats kept trying ot hammer through the SAFE act when Republicans ran the senate, knowing it would not get through, but now that they have control of both the house and senate, they just taking their sweet @ss time now to push it through? WTF...
I agree, it was now senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer who brought it to to senate last May and it and MORE were passed overwhemingly!
it was thought to be passed in the 3 Trillion dollar covid bill last year due to the fact that Cannabis was deemed an "Esential Service" from the Feds.... and it was a no brainer Congress should have approved it but dirty Mitch (now minority leader) as usuall blocked it.
There are some extremely important items that need to pushed through in the new covid stimulus and right now SAFE or MORE are not one of them but that doesnt mean it wont be top of the agenda immidiatly after IMO these WILL be passed this year sooner than later.
Cannabis is an essential service and they need to protect that industry immidiately!
Executive order?
To get a sense of what’s most likely to happen in 2021 we’ll look at where several key Biden administration officials stand on federal marijuana reform:
- President Joe Biden – Biden’s current position is that “we should just study [marijuana] and decriminalize it.”
- Vice-President Kamala Harris – During the vice-presidential debate in 2020 Harris promised that she would work with Biden to “decriminalize marijuana and […] expunge the records of those who have been convicted of marijuana.” In the Senate she introduced the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act to decriminalize cannabis and co-sponsored the SAFE Banking Act.
- Xavier Becerra, Department of Health and Human Services – Becerra, California’s Attorney General, has publicly advocated for federal marijuana reform. In 2017 he said, “we’ve realized it’s better to regulate than criminalize marijuana use” and in 2018 he co-signed a letter sent by 17 Attorneys General to Congress urging them to pass the SAFE Banking Act.
- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer – Schumer introduced the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act to decriminalize marijuana and was quoted in 2020 as saying, “My commitment is that if I am leader, I am going to do everything I can to put the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act on the floor of the Senate. The odds are very high it will pass.”
Taking those positions into account, it seems highly likely we’ll see marijuana decriminalized and/or protections put in place to protect financial institutions that bank marijuana businesses. It’s likely versions of the MORE and SAFE Banking Acts will be passed by Congress now that Democrats control both the House and the Senate, but should those efforts stall out it’s been suggested that Biden is not opposed to decriminalizing marijuana by executive order.