RESPECT Resolution

Whereas persons and communities continue to be negatively impacted by cannabis policies and marijuana’s status as a scheduled substance under the Controlled Substances Act; Whereas the persons and communities that have been most harmed by marijuana prohibition are benefitting the least from the legal cannabis marketplace and other cannabis policy reforms; Whereas a legacy of racial and ethnic injustices, compounded by the disproportionate collateral consequences of 80 years of marijuana prohibition and enforcement, now limits access to public benefits, such as nutritional assistance, housing, education and economic opportunities, including participation in the cannabis industry; Whereas 24 States as well as the District of Columbia and the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands have legalized cannabis use for adults and 38 now allow some form of medical cannabis; Whereas the United States cannabis market currently stands at around $65 billion in annual revenue, and by 2030, this number is expected to balloon to $100 billion if cannabis is federally legalized; Whereas the failed war on drugs has cost the United States roughly $1 trillion, with economists estimating that criminal justice expenditures related to the marijuana prohibition costs States roughly $6 billion and the Federal Government $4 billion per year; Whereas people of color have been historically victimized by discriminatory sentencing practices, resulting in Black men receiving drug sentences that are 13.4 times greater than sentences imposed for White men, and non-White persons accounted for 86.5 percent of cannabis convictions; Whereas, according to the ACLU, Black people are 3.64 times more likely than White people to be arrested for cannabis possession, even though usage rates are comparable; Whereas hundreds of thousands of people continue to be arrested every year for cannabis violations, primarily at the State level, and that the Federal placement of cannabis in the Controlled Substances Act is often cited as a reason for States not to legalize cannabis; Whereas the decriminalization of cannabis possession has proved to reduce the disparity in arrest rates between Black and White men by almost 20 percent, as well as reducing total arrest rates by over 70 percent among adults; Whereas the criminalization of cannabis results in the detention and subsequent deportation of countless immigrants seeking to build better lives for themselves and their families in the United States; Whereas, as a noncitizen merely working for a State-licensed marijuana business and otherwise fully compliant with all Federal and State laws can still be deported due to the placement of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act; Whereas cannabis policies continue to punish people for personal cannabis use and possession, as well as legal records and consequences associated with cannabis violations; Whereas non-White ownership of cannabis businesses shrank in 2022 to 15.4 percent from 20.7 percent in 2021; Whereas cannabis businesses are limited by numerous laws, regulations, taxes, and prohibitive permit applications and licensing fees in these States, which can total more than $100,000, with annual renewal fees also exceeding $100,000; Whereas historically disproportionate arrest and conviction rates make it particularly difficult for people of color to enter the legal cannabis marketplace, as most States bar these individuals from participating; Whereas Federal law severely limits access to loans and capital for cannabis businesses, disproportionately impacting minority small business owners; Whereas the World Health Organization reported that about 2.5 percent of the global population use cannabis, and disparate legal outcomes pertaining to the substance have been replicated in foreign states; Whereas cannabis and cannabis resin, including extracts and tinctures of cannabis, are classified by the United Nations (UN) as a Schedule I drug under UN drug control treaties such as the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs; Whereas the classification of cannabis as a Schedule I drug is outdated and the U.S. should be leading the way on cannabis reform at the multilateral level; Whereas foreign states such as Canada, Luxembourg, Malta, Thailand, and Uruguay have legalized cannabis for recreational use, and multiple others including Mexico, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, and South Africa have taken steps to legalize cannabis; Whereas additional foreign states would reevaluate how cannabis is classified in their countries if the United Nations did so; and Whereas an increasing number of States and municipalities have taken proactive steps to acknowledge and address the harms of cannabis criminalization, advance equity in cannabis policy, and mitigate inequalities in the legal cannabis marketplace: Now, therefore, be it 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Realizing Equitable & Sustainable Participation in Emerging Cannabis Trades Resolution RESPECT Resolution 2. Best practices and steps to advance equity in cannabis policy; address disparities in the cannabis marketplace participation; address, reverse, and repair certain effects of the war on drugs (a) In general The House of Representatives encourages States and localities to adopt best practices and take bold steps referred to in subsection (b) to advance equity in cannabis policy and address disparities in the cannabis marketplace participation and to address, reverse, and repair the most egregious effects of the War on Drugs on communities of color, in particular to those who now hold criminal records for a substance that is now legal and regulated. (b) Best practices and steps The practices and steps referred to in this subsection include— (1) eliminating State and local criminal penalties for the possession and use of cannabis and ensuring that public benefits cannot be denied to persons due to a cannabis conviction; (2) establishing licensing and application fees that are reasonable to cover only the costs of program implementation and necessary regulations; (3) creating a system where licensing is to be obtained at the city or county level and should be based on regulations determined by the local jurisdiction that meet the State’s minimum requirements, which allows the community to determine the type and number of businesses, avoids arbitrary caps on licenses, and results in an industry more representative of the local market; (4) in States where license caps are completely unavoidable, establishing local oversight and control of cannabis licenses by allowing local cities and municipalities to prioritize licenses for local citizens and residents, especially individuals most impacted by the War on Drugs, by taking into account and prioritizing— (A) long-term residency within the State or locality; (B) individuals whose income is less than 80 percent of the median household income within a county; (C) individuals who have been formerly incarcerated; (D) individuals with prior drug law violations; (E) individuals living within a jurisdiction that is heavily policed; and (F) policies and regulations that truly prevent large companies and wealthy investors from obtaining significant revenue generated by license holders who have been prioritized for ownership for the reasons described in subparagraphs (A) through (E) above and for equity-based prioritizations determined by the State; (5) adopting laws and implementing regulations that will allow small cultivators to thrive in the legal market; (6) creating more equitable licensing by— (A) eliminating broad felony restrictions for licensing; (B) focusing restrictions on entering the market to those, determined on a case-by-case basis for both licensees and employees, with criminal convictions that are relevant to the owning and operating of a business; and (C) prohibiting previous cannabis convictions from consideration as justification for a denial of a license; (7) creating an automatic process, at no cost for the individual, for the expungement or sealing of criminal records for cannabis offenses that is inclusive of individuals currently on parole or under any probationary agreement, for cannabis offenses, and provides notification and certification of the expungement or sealing; (8) establishing a process for resentencing persons serving sentences for cannabis convictions and redesignating of penalties for persons previously convicted of cannabis-related crimes for which the penalties have been reduced or removed; (9) eliminating suspicion-less drug testing for non safety-sensitive employment positions; (10) eliminating punishment or other penalization for persons currently under parole, probation, or other State supervision, or released on bail awaiting trial, for conduct otherwise allowed under State cannabis laws, and allowing the medical use of cannabis by incarcerated person if recommended by their physician; (11) setting aside a percentage of the tax revenue from cannabis sales to be reinvested in communities that have been most affected by cannabis arrests and the drug war, which most frequently have been communities of color, including programs for job training, reentry services, expungement expenses, public libraries, community centers, programs and opportunities dedicated to youth, and health education programs; (12) using a percentage of tax revenue to establish a special fund to provide small business investments to support people of color entering into the legal cannabis industry; (13) establishing cannabis regulatory and oversight bodies and commissions that reflect the racial, ethnic, economic, and gender makeup of the surrounding community; (14) creating employment and subcontracting requirements for cannabis licensees in order to use the ancillary business activity generated by the cannabis industry to employ people of color; and (15) including provisions designating spaces for public consumption, either by the licensing of social entities or by creating these spaces. 3. Descheduling cannabis globally It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the President should direct the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to seek to deschedule cannabis from the international drug control treaties, expunge and forgive legal penalties relating to certain low-level marijuana offenses, and treat cannabis as a legal commodity.

Summary: Realizing Equitable & Sustainable Participation in Emerging Cannabis Trades Resolution or the RESPECT ResolutionThis resolution encourages states and localities to adopt best practices and take bold steps to address disparities in the cannabis marketplace and to address, reverse, and repair the effects of the war on drugs on communities of color. The resolution also expresses the sense that the President should direct the U.S. Mission to the United Nations and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to seek to treat cannabis as a legal commodity.