Great news for marijuana patients and entrepreneurs came down from the nation’s capital this week as the Senate Appropriations Committee voted for language in the federal budget to prevent the Department of Justice from meddling in matters of medical marijuana users and providers.
To date, it’s the most telling consensus regarding how the Senators feel about marijuana. Their overwhelming support is also a slap in the face of anti-pot U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions who has come out repeatedly in opposition to marijuana.
This decision to allow state-legal medical marijuana business go uninterrupted is not new, it just needed it’s annual renewal.
More commonly known as the 2014 Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, the provision defunds the Department of Justice from using any of their budget to go after medical marijuana businesses and patients who abide by state laws.
Don Murphy is the director of conservative outreach for the Marijuana Policy Project, after the vote he said, “the sound we heard in the Senate was the sound of a waving white flag as the federal war on medical marijuana patients and providers winds down.”
In his statement, Murphy warned the fight for patients rights isn’t over.
“We strongly urge the rest of Congress to do the right thing and include this amendment in the final budget. Even if you are one of the few people who don’t support medical marijuana, states should still have the right to help their most vulnerable residents. They should not have to worry about the Department of Justice interfering.”
According to a highly cited Quinnipiac University from this April, 94 percent of American voters support allowing adults to legally use medical marijuana for medical purposes. The poll also reveals that 73 percent of American voters “oppose government enforcement of federal laws against marijuana in states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana.”
