House Democrats scrap two marijuana measures

688 0

The Republicans win a battle and military veterans lose out

Directly from the House, the Democrats decided to bury two of the provisions that were added as amendments in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that was passed this summer. These provisions took part in a larger bill, and these amendments were intended to bring some relief to the veteran community. The Senate decided not to include these proposals in the version of the legislation it had, and unfortunately, when the time came to negotiate it about them, both parties agreed to scratch them out of the bill.

The first measure that was proposed was to protect the veterans from getting rejected by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to apply to get an approval for a home loan, only because of current employment in any cannabis business in a state where cannabis is legal. The second measure went beyond, allowing the military branches to grant the option of reenlistment to those services members convicted of committing a low-scale marijuana offense. The conference report from that meeting shows the House vanishing about 630 provisions from the bill and the Senate approximately 600. It seems to be these cannabis measures simply didn’t seem relevant at the time for any of the two chambers, nor the negotiators.

The news wasn’t happily received by the sponsors for these two measures. Katherine Clark, the force behind the home loan amendment, actually circulated a letter addressed to the VA talking about the problem with the current situation. Also, Representative Ruben Gallego, sponsor of the reenlistment waiver measure, talked about the need to rethink the enlistment process, especially with the recruitment crisis that the country is going through. It isn’t clear why the decision was made to not support the bills, but it could indicate a larger push coming to prevent further cannabis reform in the country.