One Sessions just helped another by blocking two amendments that would allow the District of Columbia to implement an adult-use sales program and allow cannabis related business to use banks.
Late Monday night, the House Rules Committee led by prohibitionist Representative Pete Sessions (R-TX) blocked two amendments related to marijuana from receiving consideration by the full House, thus ending their consideration and silencing the ability for the lower chamber to offer protections from Attorney General Jeff Sessions when it comes to cannabis.
The amendments included allowing the District of Columbia to implement adult-use sales program, originally passed by voters in 2014, and protections for banks to provide services to marijuana businesses.
In a release sent out earlier in the day on Monday containing the testimony by Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), the Congresswoman stated
“My first amendment, cosponsored by Representatives Dana Rohrabacher, Barbara Lee and Earl Blumenauer, strikes the rider that prohibits D.C. from spending its local funds to commercialize recreational marijuana. Nine states have legalized recreational marijuana, and eight of those states have approved commercialization.”
In February 2015, D.C. legalized the possession of marijuana for recreational use, after two independent studies found dramatic racial disparities in marijuana arrests in D.C.
A rider to block recreational use failed due to faulty drafting, and possession of up to two ounces of marijuana for recreational use is legal in D.C., but Congress has prohibited D.C. from spending its local funds to tax and regulate recreational marijuana.
This rider has unintentionally benefited violent drug gangs. For that reason, some refer to it as the “Drug Dealer Protection Act.” As one marijuana dealer told the Washington Post, the rider is “a license for me to print money.” Regulating marijuana like alcohol would allow D.C., instead of drug dealers, to control production, distribution, sales and revenues.