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The Senate's Medical Marijuana Bill Might Protect Recreational Dispensaries

For the first time ever, the Senate will consider legalizing medical marijuana.

For the first time ever, the ​US Senate will consider a bill that would recognize the medical uses of marijuana and would allow states to pass medical marijuana legislation without fearing reprisal from the federal government. It looks like there may be some concessions to the legal recreational weed industry, too.

It's called the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States Act, and it was introduced today by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), three well-respected members of the Senate who have proven they are able to get legislation passed.

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It has the potential to be a very huge deal, and it's a signal that marijuana reform is gaining traction at a national level.

"Our government has long overstepped the boundaries of common sense and fiscal prudence"

It's a huge step forward for marijuana legislation, and it addresses many of the problems and fears states that have legalized medicinal marijuana have run into. And, as a bonus, the bill may make it easier for legal weed dispensaries to operate in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Washington, DC.

Importantly, the bill would reschedule marijuana as a Schedule II drug, meaning it has "accepted medical use," alongside many prescription drugs like Adderall, methadone, oxycodone, Percocet, and morphine. Currently, marijuana is a Schedule I drug, like LSD, heroin, ecstasy, and hallucinogenic mushrooms.

It would also codify the idea that states can set their own medical marijuana policies, meaning that those in the medical marijuana business, including dispensaries, growers, and doctors, wouldn't be subject to the whims of the Drug Enforcement Agency and could operate without fear of prosecution.

Less pressingly but still important, the bill will allow for expanded marijuana research by universities and places like the Centers for Disease Control. At the moment, it's extremely difficult to do research on Schedule I drugs. Finally, the bill would allow medical marijuana dispensaries access to banking services. Right now, most dispensaries operate as cash businesses, out of fear that their assets could get seized by the DEA.

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On its face, the bill seems to ignore the reality that four states and the nation's capital have legalized marijuana for recreational use, but the bill actually protects any "marijuana-related legitimate business," which is defined as "any business or organized activity that involves handling marijuana or marijuana products, including selling, transporting, displaying, dispensing, or distributing marijuana or marijuana products" and "engages in such activity pursuant to a law established by a State or a unite of local government."

The language of that section would seem to protect recreational weed businesses, assuming they were operating according to state laws. Whether those state laws were in accordance with federal law is another matter entirely, one that will surely have to be addressed by Congress eventually.

It's clear why CARERS didn't try to address legal recreational weed head on, however: Alaska, Washington, Colorado, Washington, DC, and Oregon are all either extremely liberal or have an independent, libertarian streak that allowed recreational referenda to pass. Congress is not ready to legalize marijuana wholesale, and it's not ready to say that states have the right to do it either.

That much was clear when a few GOP Congressional representatives ​attempted to block Washington, DC's legal marijuana law—only a semantics argument saved the district from Congressional overreach.

As I mentioned, this is the first time a federal weed bill has hit the Senate—a few others have failed in the House (and others are being considered now). If this is to have any chance of passing, it has to be a baby step, and there's much less public pushback against medical marijuana than there is against recreational weed.

"Our government has long overstepped the boundaries of common sense and fiscal prudence," Booker said at a press conference. "This bill seeks to right decades of wrongs and end unnecessary marijuana laws."

That much may be true. But two more states, ​Georgia and ​Texas, are considering legalizing weed through their state houses. CARERS makes sense, but soon, Congress will have to look at the full picture.