The nearly nonexistent Republican support for the MORE Act in the House does not bode well for its chances in the Senate, where 10 Republican votes would be needed to overcome a filibuster even if Democrats unanimously supported the bill. The same goes for the legalization bill that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) plans to introduce next month.
The MORE Act and the draft bill that Schumer unveiled last July both include unnecessarily contentious provisions that are apt to alienate Republicans who might otherwise be inclined to resolve the conflict between federal prohibition and state laws that allow medical or recreational use of marijuana. Those provisions, which include new taxes, regulations, and spending programs, suggest that Democrats want credit for trying to legalize marijuana but are not really interested in building the bipartisan coalition that would be necessary to accomplish that goal.
There is much to like in the MORE Act, which House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D–N.Y.) reintroduced last May. The bill would remove marijuana from the list of federally prohibited drugs; eliminate federal criminal penalties for manufacturing, distribution, and possession; and require automatic expungement of federal marijuana convictions. It also would remove various marijuana-related restrictions on immigrants, government contractors, federal employees, and recipients of public benefits.
If Nadler had stopped there, the bill probably would have attracted more than three Republican votes. But the MORE Act also would impose a 5 percent federal excise tax on cannabis products, rising to 8 percent after four years, in addition to frequently hefty state and local taxes. The bill requires marijuana suppliers to pay an annual "occupational tax," obtain federal permits, report information to the Treasury Department, and comply with packaging, labeling, and storage regulations. The tax and regulatory provisions, including civil and criminal penalties for violating them, account for half of the 92-page bill.
The MORE Act would use the marijuana tax revenue for various purposes, including drug treatment, "services for individuals adversely impacted by the War on Drugs," loans for marijuana businesses owned by "socially and economically disadvantaged individuals," and grants aimed at reducing "barriers to cannabis licensing and [to] employment for individuals adversely impacted by the War on Drugs." Those "social equity" provisions gave pause even to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R–Fla.), the lone Republican cosponsor of the bill.
Schumer's draft bill, the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, doubles down on that overly prescriptive and burdensome approach. It would impose a federal excise tax on marijuana starting at 10 percent and rising to 25 percent by the fifth year. State-licensed marijuana businesses, which already are regulated by state and local governments, would also be supervised by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Treasury Department's Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), and the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). The bill envisions detailed rules dealing with production, storage, transportation, packaging, labeling, advertising, and sales.
Like the MORE Act, the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act would use revenue from the federal marijuana tax to create new spending programs.
