Elizabeth Warren Sees Federal Cannabis Reform on the Horizon

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]I[/dropcap]n an interview with Rolling Stone, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she believes that the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act has a real chance to pass after the midterm elections this November. The bill would amend the Controlled Substances Act and grant states a level of autonomy to regulate cannabis as they see fit.

“I feel confident that if the Democrats recapture the Senate we’ll get a vote on this, and the vote will carry,” Warren told Rolling Stone referring to the STATES Act. “I think we’ve got the votes for this.” The STATES Act now has the support of 10 senators and 28 House members—both Democrat and Republican.

The STATES Act stalled in the House despite having the support of nearly 40 lawmakers. Sen. Warren believes that the key to federal cannabis reform falls upon one powerful person, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell recently signaled support for industrial hemp, and pushed to add hemp to the 2018 Farm Bill which is why his views on cannabis may be evolving.

“We are in a moment when Jeff Sessions highlighted aggressive law enforcement on marijuana,” she said, “and a lot of folks here in Congress looked at each other and said, ‘That’s a bad idea.’ What Cory [Gardener] and I have done is give them a place to channel that where we can make real change. Now we just need to get a vote from Mitch [McConnell].”

Recently, President Donald Trump has distanced himself from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who adopts an unpopular excessively harsh view of cannabis. Warren said in the interview that Sessions’ approach to cannabis has mostly backfired in Congress.

The STATES Act would provide protections for both medical and recreational cannabis. It would provide a more permanent solution to the incompatibility of state and federal cannabis laws.