A key committee in the US House of Representatives has given approval to a spending bill that includes a provision to prevent the rescheduling of marijuana.
The House Appropriations Committee gave approval today to the 2025 appropriations bill for Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. The proposal includes language that would block the Justice Department from reallocating funds to reschedule or remove marijuana from its current classification as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act. This would put a halt to the DEA’s proposal to reschedule marijuana, which is currently undergoing a legally required 60-day public comment period, with over 28,000 comments already submitted.
Specially, SEC. 623 of the bill states that “None of the funds appropriated or other wise made available by this Act may be used to reschedule marijuana (as such term is defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)) or to remove marijuana from the schedules established under section 202 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 812).”
The spending bill also makes changes to an existing provision that has protected state medical cannabis programs since 2014. The changes allows the government to enforce federal laws when a medical marijuana dispensary is distributing cannabis within 1,000 feet of an elementary school, college, vocational school, playground, or public housing unit. Although many states have provisions preventing dispensaries from being located near schools, only a few have limits on how close they can be to colleges or public housing units.
The measure will need to be approved by the full House of Representatives and Senate, and then signed by President Biden to become law.
For more information on the proposed spending bill, click here.
