This bill (the MORE Act) would remove cannabis (marijuana and most THC compounds) from the federal list of controlled substances. It directs the Attorney General to complete rulemaking to remove cannabis from the schedules and makes those changes retroactive to past convictions and pending cases. The bill also creates a federal tax and a new Opportunity Trust Fund to receive cannabis tax revenue. The fund's money would be split between Justice Department grant programs and Small Business Administration (SBA) programs that support people and communities harmed by past cannabis enforcement.
The bill requires federal courts to expunge many non-violent federal cannabis convictions and associated arrests and to review and possibly reduce sentences for people still serving sentences for non-violent federal cannabis offenses. It directs sealing of records after expungement and provides for appointed counsel for indigent petitioners in those proceedings.
The bill establishes a Cannabis Justice Office in the Department of Justice to run a Community Reinvestment Grant Program for job training, reentry services, legal aid (including expungement), literacy, youth programs, and health education. It creates SBA programs to provide loans, grants, and technical assistance to small cannabis businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged people and to help states design equitable licensing systems.
Other changes include: requiring the Bureau of Labor Statistics to collect demographic data on the cannabis industry; allowing SBA and related federal small-business assistance programs to serve cannabis-related businesses; prohibiting denial of federal public benefits or security clearances on the basis of cannabis use or past cannabis convictions; changing immigration law so cannabis conduct that is no longer illegal under the Act cannot be used to deny immigration benefits; directing several studies (Comptroller General, DOT, NIOSH, Department of Education) on legalization impacts; and preserving certain federal agency authorities such as Food and Drug rules, transportation safety screening, and a limited federal employee drug-testing exception.
No publicly available information on the total net federal cost or savings is provided in the bill text. The bill creates a federal tax on cannabis products (with initial percentage rates set for the first years and later equivalent per-ounce or per-gram amounts) and directs net tax revenues to an Opportunity Trust Fund. The Trust Fund is divided (by percentage) to support Justice Department grant programs and SBA programs. The bill also authorizes a $10,000,000 appropriation to the Department of Transportation to study marijuana impairment detection.
The bill's findings and provisions describe the view that decades of cannabis prohibition have produced racial and economic disparities: communities most harmed by enforcement benefit least from the legal cannabis market, arrests and convictions disproportionately affected people of color, and many people with convictions face barriers to entering the legal market. The bill aims to remove criminal penalties, expunge records, redirect tax revenue to communities harmed by the War on Drugs, expand access to capital and SBA programs for disadvantaged entrepreneurs, and support equitable licensing and reentry services.
No publicly available information.