Senate Could Consider Marijuana Research Amendment On Spending Bill

The federal government would be required to study the impact of state marijuana legalization laws under an amendment to a spending bill that Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) wants his colleagues to consider this week. The measure, which would be attached to appropriations legislation funding the Department ofJustice and other government agencies for the 2020 fiscal year, lists several criminal justice-related aspects of legalization that the attorney general would have to review. Menendez filed a similar cannabis research amendment last year, but the study objectives were different. Whereas this latest version calls for an analysis of data focused primarily on issues such as marijuana arrests and criminal justice costs, the previous measure would have ordered the Justice Department to study revenue from legal cannabis sales, opioid-related overdoses and hospitalization and the experience of patients using medical cannabis in legal states. The former amendment did not receive a vote, so it didn’t make it into final 2019 appropriations legislation. It’s yet to be seen whether this latest version will be allowed for consideration on the Senate floor. The new proposal asks for a review of “rates of marijuana-related arrests for possession, cultivation, and distribution, and of these arrests, the percentages that involved…

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