On a Zoom call with reporters Monday, Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-D) argued that federal cannabis policies are contributing to the supply chain crisis in the United States and to the recent chain of violent crime targeting dispensaries.
In a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Blumenauer urges him to update the agency’s policies for commercial-grade licensing holders. Blumenauer asserts that this is outdated Federal Policies They excluded “tens of thousands of commercial drivers for past cannabis use” contributing to the “unprecedented” supply chain problems facing the nation.
This crisis must be addressed urgently. Blumenauer writes in the letter. “Your department must quickly fix the requirements Drivers test and bringing them back into service, as well as developing an accurate vulnerability test.”
The Department of Transportation’s current zero-tolerance policy “is sweeping across drivers who have not been affected, drivers who have not used cannabis for weeks or even months, and drivers who have used federally legal CBD oils,” Blumenauer asserts in the letter.
Medical Marijuana Research Act, authored by Blumenauer and which passed the house In the past month, it will be an asset to the federal government and researchers seeking to develop tests for cannabis deficiency, he said.
“We need to put the resources behind devising alternative ways to identify vulnerability. … The federal government, until recently, has been interfering with the research. We have outsourced cannabis research to Canada, the UK or Israel. We need to get into the game and develop it… Without federal involvement, I am pretty confident that we can develop techniques to measure vulnerability quickly — right now we haven’t been able to do that because the federal government got in the way, and it got in the way, and I think that’s criminal.” — Blumenauer during a May 16 press conference
During a Zoom call, Blumenauer described a file Safe Banking Act as “life or death,” citing the recent crime targeting dispensaries in some states. He said That the measure’s inclusion as an amendment to a bipartisan Senate bill is an “opportune moment” for cannabis legislation to pass, eventually, in the upper house.
This measure passed the House of Representatives as an independent measure six times and in the Senate it was adopted for the US Innovation and Competition Act, a measure intended to ease manufacturing and supply chain issues.
The bill that would reform federalism Banking Services He explained that the government’s legal cannabis business policies, are a “critical” tool to end the recent chain of crimes targeting the cannabis business, which lacks traditional financial services and operates mostly in cash. Furthermore, he said the legislation will help many smaller operators who cannot absorb the additional costs associated with enhanced security.
Blumenauer described crimes against dispensaries as a “national epidemic” that House-passed legislation could help remedy and that the violence was a “direct attack on low-income people, people of color, and emerging markets.”
“They are handicapped by the additional costs and security, and I want to solve that problem,” he said. “He’s been through the House six times and now it’s a chance.”
Last week, 24 senators from both parties sent a letter Senate leaders Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) urge them to retain the text of the SAFE Banking Act in Senate legislation.
