Politics
Congressional Subcommittee Votes To Keep Blocking Marijuana Sales In D.C. As Trump Requested In Budget
House lawmakers have advanced a spending bill that would maintain a controversial provision preventing Washington, D.C. from using its own tax dollars to create a regulated marijuana market.
On Monday, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) approved the legislation, retaining the rider championed by anti-cannabis Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD).
To the disappointment of stakeholders and advocates, the FSGG legislation did not contain any language on marijuana industry banking access, as was included in the House spending bill during previous sessions.
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) criticized appropriators for putting forward a bill that restricts the District’s autonomy in a number of ways, including the rider to “prohibit the use of funds to commercialize recreational marijuana.”
“I am outraged at the number and scope of anti-D.C. home rule riders in the bill released today,” Norton said in a press release on Sunday when the legislative text was released.
“It is unsurprising that at a time when there are more frequent Republican attacks on D.C. home rule than any time since the 1990s, the D.C. appropriations bill reported out of a Republican-controlled subcommittee contains numerous and extensive riders that would overrule the expressed will of D.C. residents,” the congresswoman said in a separate statement after the panel’s action on Monday. “I will use every tool at my disposal to stop these riders from becoming law, and I commit to reminding my fellow lawmakers across the aisle that D.C. residents deserve consideration equal to that given to as their own constituents.”
Here’s the language of the relevant section:
“SEC. 830. (a) None of the Federal funds contained in this Act may be used to enact or carry out any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.) or any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative.
(b) No funds available for obligation or expenditure by the District of Columbia government under any authority may be used to enact any law, rule, or regulation to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C 801 et seq.) or any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative for recreational purposes.”
Norton said in May that she would again again push her colleagues to join her in an effort to remove the cannabis language.
“As Congress works on the fiscal year 2026 appropriation bill, I will continue to fight to remove this rider,” she said, while referencing a statement from the White House that called the District’s move to enact local marijuana reform an example of a “failed” policy that “opened the door to disorder.”
President Donald Trump’s budget request that he released last month similarly contained the Harris rider preventing marijuana sales in D.C., despite voters in the jurisdiction voting to approve legalization in 2014. Former President Joe Biden also repeatedly requested the continuation of the D.C. cannabis rider in budget proposals during his time in office.
While D.C. hasn’t been able to use its local funds to implement a system of regulated recreational cannabis sales over the last decade, local officials have taken steps to expand the city’s existing medical marijuana program as a workaround.
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In other appropriations-related developments, a key Senate committee recently included a variety of marijuana and psychedelics-related provisions in a report attached to a pair of spending bills—including calls to allow U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) doctors to recommend medical cannabis if the federal government reschedules it, exploring the possibility of “reducing opioid use through medical marijuana” and cracking down on illicit grow operations.
The Senate Appropriations Committee last week approved reports as well as an underlying Justice Department spending bill that would maintain protections for states with medical marijuana programs, while omitting a separate proposal included in the House version of the annual appropriations legislation that would prevent DOJ from rescheduling cannabis.
The panel also approved the veterans funding bill along with an amendment allowing VA doctors to recommend medical cannabis to their military veteran patients in legal states.
Advocates remain concerned, however, about the House language that would restrict DOJ from rescheduling cannabis, but the fact that it was not incorporated into the Senate legislation likely diminishes the chances it will ultimately be enacted when the final package is delivered to the president’s desk.
