About the bill
New legislation, the Marijuana Justice Act, would legalize marijuana on a federal level — and even provide financial incentives for states to legalize it too. Could this be the moment when federal policy finally catches up to public opinion, which now shows a majority of Americans in support of legalization?
Context
Eight states have now legalized marijuana for recreational purposes since Colorado became the first in 2012. Polls show the American public supports legalization at all time highs of 57 percent support and rising, a sharp reversal from as recently as a few years ago.
Yet marijuana has been banned under federal law since 1937, and classified as a Schedule I substance since 1971. Schedule I is the Drug Enforcement Agency’s category for the most dangerous and …
Sponsor and status
115th Congress (2017–2019)
This bill was introduced on August 1, 2017, in a previous session of Congress, but it did not receive a vote.
Although this bill was not enacted, its provisions could have become law by being included in another bill. It is common for legislative text to be introduced concurrently in multiple bills (called companion bills), re-introduced in subsequent sessions of Congress in new bills, or added to larger bills (sometimes called omnibus bills).
6 Cosponsors (5 Democrats, 1 Independent)
Position statements
What legislators are saying
“Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Congressman Ro Khanna and Senator Cory Booker Announce House Introduction of the Marijuana Justice Act”
—
Rep. Barbara Lee [D-CA12]
on Jan 17, 2018
History
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Aug 1, 2017
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Introduced
Bills and resolutions are referred to committees which debate the bill before possibly sending it on to the whole chamber. |
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Feb 28, 2019
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Reintroduced Bill —
Introduced
This activity took place on a related bill, S. 597 (116th). |
S. 1689 (115th) was a bill in the United States Congress.
A bill must be passed by both the House and Senate in identical form and then be signed by the President to become law.
Bills numbers restart every two years. That means there are other bills with the number S. 1689. This is the one from the 115th Congress.
This bill was introduced in the 115th Congress, which met from Jan 3, 2017 to Jan 3, 2019. Legislation not passed by the end of a Congress is cleared from the books.
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Where is this information from?
GovTrack automatically collects legislative information from a variety of governmental and non-governmental sources. This page is sourced primarily from Congress.gov, the official portal of the United States Congress. Congress.gov is generally updated one day after events occur, and so legislative activity shown here may be one day behind. Data via the congress project.
