Meet the new boss same as the old boss

A powerful House Committee cleared a drug policy reform amendment for consideration on the House floor on Monday. But at the same time, it blocked a separate marijuana reform proposal from advancing.

The measure moving to a full House vote, introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), would eliminate a long-standing rider on a spending bill that prohibits federal agencies from using funds for “any activity that promotes the legalization of any drug or other substance in Schedule I” of the Controlled Substances Act.

The congresswoman argued in a summary of her proposal that the current provision impedes valuable research into substances that have therapeutic potentials such as psilocybin and MDMA. Cannabis is also listed among those substances as a Schedule I drug.

The amendment blocked from advancing to the floor, filed by Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA), would have prevented the Department of Education from denying or limiting “any funding or assistance to institutions of higher education” that allow the use or possession of medical cannabis on campus in states where it is legal.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), chair of the House Rules Committee, said last year that he was “not going to block marijuana amendments like my predecessor has done.”

“I’m not going to block marijuana amendments,” he said last year shortly after Democrats took back control of the House in the midterm elections. “People ought to bring them to the floor, they should be debated and people ought to vote the way they feel appropriate.”

The rider that Ocasio-Cortez’s amendment would remove has been attached to spending legislation for the U.S. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education since at least 1996.

The congresswoman’s effort comes at an especially relevant time, as jurisdictions across the U.S. are pursuing psilocybin reform with a focus on the fungi’s medical potential. Voters in Denver approved a local measure to decriminalize the substance in May, and last week the Oakland City Council unanimously passed a similar measure that also applies to other psychedelics including ayahuasca, mescaline and ibogaine.

Just before the Rules Committee meeting on Monday, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) signed on as cosponsors of the amendment.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
✔
@AOC
We now have *bipartisan support* for our amendment allowing expanded research into psychedelics.

This is important, as several studies have shown promise in treatment-resistant PTSD, severe depression, & more.

The War on Drugs has caused so much harm. It’s time to reverse it.

Tom Angell 🌳📰
✔
@tomangell
NEW: Reps. @mattgaetz and @RoKhanna have just been added as cosponsors of @AOC’s amendment to expand research on psilocybin, MDMA and other psychedelic drugs.

The Rules Committee decides tonight whether this can go to the House floor...

BACKGROUND:https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomangell/2019/06/08/aoc-pushes-to-make-it-easier-to-study-shrooms-and-other-psychedelic-drugs/ …

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Correa’s amendment on medical marijuana at colleges and universities would have helped undercut a major reason some administrators say they won’t allow even approved patients to bring cannabis on campus: the threatened loss of federal funds over a failure to bar federally illegal drug use and possession.

“It is frustrating that patients who are seeking to improve their position in life by attending college would be forced to choose between their education and their medication,” University of Utah NORML Director Pedro Padilla told Marijuana Moment.

While the Democratic-controlled House has produced several wide-ranging marijuana bills this congressional session, including a cannabis banking bill expected to hit the floor in the coming weeks, it’s apparent that there’s strong interest in advancing reform through the appropriations process.

House Appropriations Committee reports released so far this year call for the expansion of research into medical cannabis, funding the implementation of hemp regulations, tackling the challenges associated with impaired driving, creating an alternative regulatory framework for CBD and ensuring that military veterans don’t lose their benefits due to their involvement in state-legal cannabis markets.

A committee report published on Monday also implored the federal government to reevaluate its employment polices as it pertains to workers who use cannabis in accordance with state law.

McGovern did not say during Monday’s Rules Committee meeting why he chose to block the medical marijuana amendment from advancing despite his previous pledges to allow such proposals to advance for consideration by the full House.

He had joined marijuana policy reform advocates in criticizing his predecessor, then-Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), for consistently impeding cannabis proposals from advancing.

The overall spending bill and amendments made in order will be debated on the floor this week.

This is bullshit. We voted these people into office to represent us not undermine us. I am really pissed off over this one. If you are too and you live in his district you can contact him and ask why he pulled this stunt.

Congress guts Net Neutrality

From Fight For The Future:

Bad news: The House Appropriations Committee just voted for 3 provisions that gut Net Neutrality less than a week after the rules finally went into effect.

All of the provisions are poison for Net Neutrality, but the worst would stop the FCC from implementing the rules until after the courts resolve all ten lawsuits that have been filed against the rules. That could mean no Net Neutrality for years, if not a decade.

The good news is we've filed to formally intervene in the DC Circuit's US Telecom Association v. FCC, on the side of the FCC, and will fight Comcast tooth and nail until we win, alongside some of the smartest lawyers and groups out there.

Can you chip in $5 to support our intervention in favor of Net Neutrality?

Yes, I can chip in $5 to fight Team Cable in court.

Yes — and I’ll chip in $5 every month because I know this fight isn’t going to end soon.

Net Neutrality is already one of the top issues of our time, and the new rules have the strongest legal standing possible. But we need to do the work to make the courts and everyone understand them inside and out.

To make sure we show up in court with resounding support, we're launching huge educational campaigns. We'll reach people from both sides of the aisle in online/offline communities and critical ad campaigns at key moments, so that support for net neutrality gets stronger day by day.

Team Cable has an array of lawyers and lobbyists hungry to prove themselves and get bigger bonuses. But we've got the support of the same powerful grassroots that stopped SOPA, crushed CISPA, and submitted a record number of comments to the FCC in favor of these rules.

Smart interventions can take on and take down big, entrenched powers. But to get the defense of Net Neutrality off the ground requires a lot of support, including money for things like design, ads, and phone calls. That’s why your donation is critical — so we can go big to protect the open Internet.

We're only days into net neutrality, and lawsuits are already mounting. Can you make a donation to help save the free and open Internet?

Yes, I’ll chip in $5 to save net neutrality.

As a movement, we won Net Neutrality. Millions of people weighed in and forced the FCC to produce the strongest open Internet protections in history.

That’s the kind of thing we can do when we all take action together — help us launch that kind of effort again now to protect Net Neutrality.

Yes, I'll donate.

Thanks for joining the fight for the future.

~ Tiff, Holmes, Evan, Charlie, Jeff, and the whole Fight for the Future team

P.S. We also have an ace up our sleeves in this fight — proof that a some cable companies have been throttling connections for months, if not longer. We can't give you all the details yet, but if you chip in $5 now we'll have all the resources we need to make the proof stick. Click here to chip in $5.