National Conference of State Legislatures Calls for Marijuana to be Removed from Controlled Substances Act
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) approved a resolution today urging that marijuana be removed from the Controlled Substances Act.
This would give federally approved banks the ability to work with marijuana businesses. and would also allow states to determine their own marijuana policies without the threat of federal interference. For a resolution to pass, it must be supported by a majority of participating legislators in each of 75% of the states represented at the conference’s general business meeting.
The resolution states:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the National Conference of State Legislatures believes that the Controlled Substances Act should be amended to remove cannabis from scheduling thus enabling financial institutions the ability to provide banking services to cannabis related businesses; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the National Conference of State Legislatures acknowledges that each of its members will have differing and sometimes conflicting views of cannabis and how to regulate it, but in allowing each state to craft its own regulations we may increase transparency, public safety, and economic development where it is wanted.
The full resolution can be found online at http://comm.ncsl.org/
A different version of this resolution, which called for rescheduling marijuana to a lower schedule, was approved by NCSL last year.