Wednesday marks another April 20 where marijuana aficionados are forced to contend with a patchwork of state and local laws with varying degrees of tolerance for the drug. This month, the House, for the second time, passed legislation that would legalize marijuana throughout the country.
As a relatively recent convert to the cause, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is still keeping the faith that his chamber will soon follow suit. But looking at the challenges he’s facing, I’m forced to ask: What is Schumer smoking?
What is Schumer smoking?
Eighteen states around the country, and the District of Columbia, have fully legalized weed; only four still ban products with THC, the compound that gets users high. A record share of Americans — 68 percent — supports full legalization, Gallup found last year. Even 50 percent of Republicans surveyed were in favor of legal weed. But at the federal level, marijuana is still considered a Schedule I drug, treated much the same as cocaine and heroin.
The dichotomy between what the public wants and what federal law restricts makes less and less sense as time goes on. The dissonance is both a practical limitation on the burgeoning legal marijuana industry and, more philosophically, an erosion of the supremacy of federal authority over state law.
The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, which passed on a mostly party-line vote in the House, would bring federal law in line with popular sentiment by decriminalizing marijuana and setting up a federal tax on cannabis sales. Critically, it would also address the gaping racial disparity in marijuana convictions, setting up a process for people’s criminal records to be expunged.
But that won’t be the legislation that’s eventually presented to the Senate. Instead, Schumer is working on his own proposal, which he first announced last year. The draft Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act runs along the same lines as the MORE Act, but Schumer and his co-drafters — Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Cory Booker, D-N.J. — are hoping to craft a bill that will get buy-in from their full caucus.
That’s looking trickier than you might assume given the popularity of reform measures. At least two Democratic senators — Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Joe Manchin of West Virginia — have expressed skepticism about full legalization. Given the likelihood of a Republican filibuster, that would require Schumer to get at least 12 GOP votes to move forward any comprehensive bill.
Sorry to be a buzzkill, but we’ve seen how well that strategy has worked on issues like voting rights and police reform. And the outreach that would be needed to actually make the case to Republican senators has been limited, according to MJBizDaily, which reports on the business of marijuana.
Schumer originally hoped to introduce the latest version of his bill by the end of this month. Now that timeline has slipped back to sometime “before the August recess,” Marijuana Moment reported, which doesn’t exactly inspire hope that this is a top priority. There are slightly better odds for getting a narrower bill, known as the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act, to President Joe Biden’s desk. The SAFE Act would finally give banks a federal green light to work with dispensaries in states with legal weed, which has hindered the ability of licensed businesses to operate. Like the MORE Act, this bill has passed the House multiple times, but, in this case, it has passed on a bipartisan basis. And, encouragingly, the Senate version has nine GOP co-sponsors on board. “The issue I’m emphasizing with Sen. Schumer, I think, is a unifying issue,” Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, told MJBizDaily. “This is also a safety issue. The way businesses have to carry around tens of thousands of dollars in cash because they can’t bank is really dangerous.” That sounds like a solid first step that’s worth taking — but it’s a policy shift that would benefit businesses more than people, which has me hesitant to fully back the SAFE Act as a standalone bill. Schumer has likewise been cool on any bill that doesn’t deal with the legacy of the racist intent behind America’s drug laws. The result, though, is that versions of the SAFE Act and other, smaller reforms have been stripped out of multiple spending packages, including the most recent defense appropriations bill and the omnibus government funding bill that passed last month. I understand Schumer’s desire to wrap all of the issues surrounding marijuana into one package. But, to be blunt, despite the clear need for reforms, any chance of a comprehensive legalization bill passing in the Senate is looking more and more like a pipe dream.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House. 
