When I entered the halls of Congress for the first time in 1979, the idea of legislating cannabis was not only off the table; it was nowhere near it. Like most Americans at the time, my understanding of cannabis was informed by the perspective that fighting drug use was best done through stringent legal penalties and educational programs designed to advance sobriety and abstinence. Additionally, little information was known in those days regarding the long-term impacts or uses of the substance. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that the movement to legalize cannabis at the state level gained any traction — and, even still, virtually no one was embracing cannabis at the federal level. But that was then.
Today, more than 100 million Americans live in a state with legal or medical access to cannabis and cannabis products. As of 2020, the cannabis industry was worth $61 billion, which is expected to grow. The cannabis industry is creating an average of 280 new jobs per day, and states like Arizona and Illinois are seeing their annual tax revenues from cannabis top $1 billion. Recent polling by the Coalition for Cannabis Policy, Education, and Regulation (CPEAR) shows overwhelming bipartisan support for ending the federal prohibition on cannabis, with 70 percent of voters in favor of ending federal prohibition. [Read More @ The Hill]
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