GOP Congressman Files Marijuana Research Bill With Days Left In Session
MJ moment

With just days left in the current Congress, a GOP lawmaker has refiled a bill to promote marijuana research that he’s introduced for the past several sessions. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) filed the Medical Cannabis Research Act for the third consecutive Congress on Thursday. An earlier version of the bill cleared a key House committee in 2018 when Republicans were in the majority, but the new legislation is not expected to move during the remainder of the lame duck session with lawmakers having finished their work until the new 118th Congress starts in early January. While the measure has evolved over time, the latest text is not currently available and Gaetz’s staff hasn’t replied to Marijuana Moment’s queries, so it’s unclear if it’s been further revised, or when the congressman might refile it again for the new Congress, which will see the GOP back in control of the House. The bill as introduced in the last Congress in 2019 would require the Justice Department to approve additional manufacturers of research-grade marijuana, protect research institutions interested in conducting studies on cannabis and authorize the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to inform patients about federally approved cannabis studies that they can participate in. While the initial version of the legislation was approved by a voice vote in the GOP-controlled House Judiciary Committee after it was first introduced in 2018, several Democratic members of Congress and drug policy reform advocacy organizations voiced opposition to language in the bill that would have barred people with “a felony or drug-related misdemeanor” from manufacturing marijuana for research purposes. The current chair of the panel, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), voted against the proposal at the time because he said it “unfortunately and unjustly expands the collateral consequences of criminal convictions.” But that language was stripped from the…

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Source : GOP Congressman Files Marijuana Research Bill With Days Left In Session

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