Democratic congressional lawmakers have announced the filing of a bill that would remove a restriction that’s prevented the White House drug czar from advocating for the legalization of marijuana or other Schedule I drugs under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
At a Last Prisoner Project (LPP) event outside the Capitol on Tuesday, Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN)—co-chairs of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus—talked about the group’s legislative priorities for marijuana reform. Beyond the new bill, that will also include bipartisan legislation to end federal prohibition in legal states and free up the industry to access banking services.
The lawmakers’ “Evidence-Based Drug Policy Act” would take aim at a federal statute prohibiting the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) from promoting reform around Schedule I drugs.
The current law states that no funds provided to ONDCP can be used for “any study or contract relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of a substance listed in schedule I,” further requiring the office’s director to “take such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use of a substance (in any form)” that is in Schedule I and has not been approved for use for medical purposes by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Under the two-page bill, that statutory language included in section 704(b)(12) of the ONDCP Reauthorization Act would be repealed.
Titus said on Tuesday that the legislation would “remove outdated restrictions, which are just ludicrous.”
“They’re not allowed to sponsor any research on Schedule I drugs. They can’t even talk about it, to show you how ridiculous is,” she said. “And by law, they have to actively oppose the legalization of any substance that is Schedule I and not approved by the FDA. We’re trying to remove that prohibition.”
Marijuana legalization “is not some out-of-nowhere kind of issue. This is something that is truly mainstream,” Titus said. “So if we can get rid of that policy, we can begin to do research on some of the advantages, or how marijuana can be used and what are the medical implications so when they say, ‘Oh, we don’t know—we don’t know what it’ll do, it might be dangerous’—you can counter that with good research.”
Whether the Trump administration’s recently appointed drug czar would exercise the authority to advocate for reform under the bill if enacted is uncertain. However, ONDCP Director Sara Carter has previously called medical marijuana a “fantastic” treatment option for seriously ill patients and said she doesn’t have a “problem” with legalization, even if she might not personally agree with the policy.
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