Marijuana Moment
A Republican-controlled House committee has rejected a GOP member’s attempt to simply ask the White House to work with federal agencies to study state marijuana regulatory models and develop a national framework to prepare for the possibility that cannabis is federally legalized.
At a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) introduced an amendment to a spending bill report that would have made the request for the administrative review. But after he and two other Republican lawmakers asked for the committee’s support, it was shot down in a voice vote. And it didn’t muster enough support in the room to force a roll call vote.
The defeat comes on the same day that the committee approved an underlying spending bill that maintains a longstanding rider blocking Washington, D.C. from using its local tax dollars to implement a system of regulated cannabis sales.
