This week, Representatives Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna introduced a house bill aimed to reform federal marijuana laws and foster healing in communities that prohibition has hurt most.
Introduced in the Senate last August by New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, the ‘Marijuana Justice Act of 2017‘ seeks to remove cannabis from the U.S.’ illegal and restricted drug ‘schedule,’ and to address the destructive impacts that cannabis prohibition continues to have on both individuals and their government.
During a Facebook Live event, Reps. Lee and Khanna joined Sen. Booker and members of the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance to announce the introduction of a companion bill to Booker’s S. 1689, which has a dozen House cosponsors so far. They also discussed the need for meaningful cannabis reform–and voters’ demand for it–in the wake of our mass incarceration crisis, which has primarily impacted communities of color around the country.
According to the lawmakers, recovery from our generations-long war on cannabis must include a range of efforts at the federal level, from adjusting the role and responsibility of law enforcement to reinvesting in communities we have left, so to speak, on the battlefield.
More on current Marijuana law at Forbes
