House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Monday that sufficient votes exist in the House to pass federal marijuana reform, with Republican leadership standing as the primary obstacle to a floor vote.
Speaking at a press briefing on the unofficial cannabis holiday 4/20, Jeffries said: "I'm hopeful that we can find a legislative path forward. This does seem to exist as a bipartisan issue, particularly amongst younger generations of Republicans and the entirety of the House Democratic Caucus, and we know that the votes do exist to act legislatively."
He said his party aims to act in the current Congress and expects to be in position to do so in the next if Democrats regain the House majority in November's elections.
Jeffries has a lengthy record on cannabis legislation. He co-sponsored the Marijuana Freedom and Opportunity Act with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to federally deschedule marijuana, and co-sponsors a bill with Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) that would lay the groundwork for federal marijuana legalization by establishing a commission to study cannabis regulation and recommend a framework modeled on alcohol policy.
"I've consistently supported the rescheduling of marijuana," Jeffries said. "It should not be classified as a Schedule I drug." He tied the classification to the "failed war on drugs, which has resulted in the over incarceration of millions of Americans since that failed war on drugs was first launched by Richard Nixon in the summer of 1971," also citing the First Step Act as part of his bipartisan criminal justice work.
The administrative process to reclassify cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act remains ongoing. Under prior Democratic House majorities, federal legalization bills passed twice and cannabis banking legislation advanced on multiple occasions, but neither has ever cleared the Senate under either party's control.
The House Appropriations Committee is expected this week to issue a directive requiring federal agencies to study the "adequacy" of state marijuana laws and evaluate approaches for "preventing diversion of state legal cannabis product into jurisdictions that do not permit the use of cannabis."
