Senator Schumer said: “In the coming weeks, we’re ramping up our outreach and we expect to introduce final legislation. Our goal is to do it in April. Then we begin the nationwide push, spearheaded by New York, to get the federal law done. As the majority leader, I can set priorities. This is a priority for me.”
This vote marks the sixth time that members of the House have advanced SAFE Banking to the Upper Chamber either as an amendment or as a stand-alone piece of legislation.
Here is NORML’s weekly update on state legislative activity in Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio.
“This legislation is consistent with the laws of a growing number of jurisdictions that recognize that off-hours cannabis use poses no legitimate threat to either workplace safety or productivity. Tens of millions of Americans consume cannabis responsibly while in the privacy of their own home and its serves no purpose to allow employers to unduly discriminate against them.”
“Marijuana access is long overdue for Mississippi’s patients,” NORML’s State Policies Manager Jax James said. “The overwhelming majority of voters decided in favor of this policy change over a year ago, and for the past 14 months the will of the people has been denied.”
State lawmakers have rejected a series of legislative proposals that sought to curtail how and where patients could access and use medical cannabis.
NORML has long opined that patients must have access to cannabis flowers, stating: “Orally administered non-herbal forms of cannabis possess delayed onset and their effects are far less predictable than those of herbal cannabis.
“We are ready and eager to work with Ohio legislators over the next four months to legalize the adult use of marijuana in Ohio,” CTRMLA spokesman Tom Haren said in a press release. “We are also fully prepared to collect additional signatures and take this issue directly to voters on November 8, 2022, if legislators fail to act.”