A second Republican member of the US Senate has endorsed taxing marijuana at the federal level.
In an interview with AskAPol, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said “let’s tax it”, when it comes to legal marijuana. The comments come just three weeks after Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) announced his support for a comprehensive regulatory framework for marijuana, similar to that of tobacco.
During the interview, Senator Cassidy also said “that’s a good thing” in regards to the Biden Administration’s effort to reschedule marijuana. Cassidy also expressed support for federal marijuana banking legislation, saying “I’ve supported that in the past, because just I think it’s better not to have millions of dollars beneath the mattress.” Let’s tax it.”
Senator Cassidy was a cosponsor of the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act, which was signed into law by President Biden in 2022, making it the first standalone marijuana bill to ever been enacted into law.
When asked whether he supports clemency for marijuana offenders, Cassidy said “Well, I’m not sure I want to be out there, and my only pause on that is that sometimes — I’m not a prosecutor — I gather sometimes there was a suite of things they could get you on, but they chose this one as part of the plea deal. And so, we go on to say, are we gonna judge somebody without the context of perhaps a plea deal? So I’m a little bit nervous about it.”
You can find the full interview here.
Last month Senator Tillis became the first GOP member of the US Senate to endorse federal marijuana legalization, saying “We have to understand that this is a market that is going to exist and it’s going to persist, so the federal government needs to figure out a safe way to allow this market to occur”, saying he supports “a federal framework that states can choose to opt into or out of”.
