More to Come... The MORE Act & What it Means

By Justine Sutton

On December 4, the House of Representatives approved legislation on the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act. Passing the bill in the Senate, however, is still not likely, even with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris as its sponsor.

But if Democrats win the runoff elections in Georgia on January 5, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will be stripped of his power to block such bills. That includes decriminalization or legalization, which he has blocked consistently despite the overwhelming popularity of legalization, even among Republican voters.

Even if the Senate doesn’t flip, though, the House’s historic move will prove powerful for a very tangible reason — the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report states if the MORE Act becomes law, the government would take in about $13.7 billion in revenue by 2030. Passage of the act also would save the federal prison system about $1 billion.

What other changes would the MORE Act bring?

• Cannabis would be completely removed from the Controlled Substances Act. With cannabis off federal scheduling, individual states can decide how they’ll reform their marijuana laws.

• The MORE Act is the first federal legislation establishing social equity programs for cannabis entrepreneurs, and would ensure expungements of prior low-level marijuana offenses, with sentences reduced for those serving time in federal prisons for such violations

• The MORE Act will tax all cannabis sales at 5%, going toward regulatory oversight, funding expungements and resentencing procedures, and researching how legal cannabis will affect the population at large.