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For Immediate Release
May, 28 2021, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Matt Sutton 212-613-8026
Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment & Expungement (MORE) Act Reintroduced in the House
Reintroduced version strengthened by including more opportunities for directly impacted people to participate in the cannabis industry.
WASHINGTON
Today, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) reintroduced the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment & Expungement (MORE) Act--with original co-sponsors Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) --in the U.S. House of Representatives. This bill is backed by 155 organizations who support moving the MORE Act swiftly to the House floor this summer. The bill--which completely deschedules marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, addresses the lifelong consequences of marijuana criminalization, reinvests in communities that have borne the brunt of prohibition, and takes steps to ensure an equitable and diverse marketplace--is supported by civil rights groups, public health professionals, law enforcement, directly-impacted people, and state and local marijuana regulators from across the country.
"It is clear, by the overwhelming extent to which they passed the MORE Act last session, that the House understands this for the urgent racial and social justice issue it is," said Maritza Perez, Director of the Office of National Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. "Our communities that have borne the brunt of marijuana prohibition have waited long enough for justice. We urge House leadership to move swiftly to bring the bill back to the floor this session, so that we can continue the momentum and move a marijuana justice bill in the Senate as well."
In December 2020 the MORE Act made history when it became the first piece of comprehensive marijuana reform legislation that actually deschedules marijuana--and the only one centered in reparative justice--to pass either chamber of Congress. The bill, which was overwhelmingly passed in a 228-164 vote, was backed by 120 House co-sponsors, including a strong contingent of House Leadership.
While the final version of the MORE Act that passed the House last year ended up including language that excluded some directly-impacted people from being able to fully participate in the industry at the federal level, this language was removed from the version that was reintroduced today.
"With the majority of Americans in favor of marijuana legalization for adult use, and the way in which communities of color have been devastated by prohibition finally being widely acknowledged, prioritizing marijuana reform that begins to undo this harm and give back to those communities should be a no-brainer," said Queen Adesuyi, Policy Manager for the Office of National Affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. "We are grateful that not only was this bill reintroduced so early in the session, but that the exclusionary language that ended up getting added in through the political process last year was removed. This bill is meant to comprehensively address the widespread harms of prohibition, and it is impossible to do that if we are still leaving those that have already paid the steepest price out. We urge House Leadership to bring this bill to the floor without delay."
DPA has worked tirelessly to move the MORE Act forward since its inception, by working with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and then-Senator Kamala Harris to draft and introduce the legislation last session, creating the Marijuana Justice Coalition to build widespread support, and pushing for an initial Judiciary Committee mark-up amid a busy impeachment trial. This collective effort resulted in the MORE Act being passed out of committee in November 2019 and passed by the full House in December 2020. Throughout, DPA has consistently educated legislators on the inequalities created by marijuana prohibition, which have exacerbated this moment's intersecting health and racial injustice crises, and continued to build momentum around equitable and just federal reform. At the beginning of 2021, DPA convened the Federal Cannabis Regulations Working Group to determine what a federal regulatory framework--grounded in justice and social equity--should look like, and the group released its Principles for Federal Cannabis Regulations & Reform in April 2021.
Last year's Senate companion bill, S.2227, was introduced by then-Senator Kamala Harris and attracted notable co-sponsors, including Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Another bill that builds on the MORE Act is expected to be introduced in the Senate by Senators Schumer (D-NY), Booker (D-NJ), and Wyden (D-OR) in the near future.
According to the most recent Gallup public opinion poll, 68% of Americans support marijuana legalization. Thirty-five states plus the District of Columbia have laws that allow legal access to medical marijuana, 16 states plus the District of Columbia allow legal access to marijuana for adult use, and two additional states--New Mexico and Virginia--have passed legalization, but it has yet to take effect. Despite this, the continued enforcement of marijuana prohibition laws are responsible for more than half a million arrests in the United States every year. Black and Brown people are disproportionately impacted, with Black people specifically being four times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than white people despite equal rates of consumption. Marijuana has also been one of the leading causes of deportation in the United States.
The Drug Policy Alliance is the nation's leading organization promoting drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights.
(212) 613-8020LATEST NEWS
Judge: Trump Admin Can't Hold or Deport Mahmoud Khalil 'On Rubio's Say-So'
"This is the news we've been waiting over three months for. Mahmoud must be released immediately and safely returned home to New York to be with me and our newborn baby, Deen," his wife, Noor Abdalla, said.
Jun 11, 2025
The Trump administration cannot detain or deport former Columbia University student and Palestinian solidarity advocate Mahmoud Khalil over the claim that he poses a threat to U.S. foreign policy, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
"The court finds as a matter of fact that [Khalil's] career and reputation are being damaged and his speech is being chilled—and this adds up to irreparable harm," U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz of New Jersey wrote in his preliminary injunction.
While judges have ordered the release of other noncitizen student protesters detained by the Trump administration, the ruling marks the first from a federal court to state that the administration cannot deport or detain noncitizens by arguing they pose a threat to foreign policy under the Immigration and Nationality Act, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New York said in a statement.
"Today's ruling is a huge win for the Constitution and the rights of citizens and noncitizens alike."
"This is the news we've been waiting over three months for. Mahmoud must be released immediately and safely returned home to New York to be with me and our newborn baby, Deen," Noor Abdalla, Khalil's wife, said in response. "True justice would mean Mahmoud was never taken away from us in the first place, that no Palestinian father, from New York to Gaza, would have to endure the painful separation of prison walls like Mahmoud has."
Khalil, a green card holder married to a U.S. citizen, has been held in a detention facility in Louisiana since he was seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from his New York City home in early March, missing the birth of his son. He has not been charged with any crime.
Instead, Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that Khalil's participation in student Palestine solidarity protests threatened U.S. foreign policy interests, citing Section 1227 of the U.S. Code.
Farbriarz determined late last month that Rubio's argument was "likely" unconstitutional, but stopped short of granting Khalil a preliminary injunction releasing him from detention. Since then, Khalil's legal team filed new evidence detailing the "irreparable harm" he has experienced due to his detention.
"We are relieved that the court documented what was obvious to the world, which is that the government's vindictive and unconstitutional arrest, detention, and attempted deportation of Mahmoud for his Palestinian activism is causing him and his family agonizing personal and professional harm," said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights—one of the organizations involved in Khalil's defense. "We look forward to his reunion with his wife and newborn son, and for this remarkable, brilliant man to reclaim his life and his reputation."
Brett Max Kaufman, a member of Khalil's legal team and senior counsel in the ACLU's Center for Democracy, said: "Today's ruling is a huge win for the Constitution and the rights of citizens and noncitizens alike. No one should be imprisoned or deported for their political beliefs, and the three months that Mahmoud has spent in detention are an affront to the freedoms that this country is supposed to stand for."
Fellow legal team member Ramzi Kassem, the co-founder and director of CLEAR, said, "This vindicates what Mahmoud has maintained since day one—that the government cannot detain or deport him based on Rubio's say-so."
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said: "We welcome this ruling as yet another example of our nation's judicial system pushing back against the Trump administration's unconstitutional effort to silence all those who speak out against Israel's genocide in Gaza, and against our government's unconscionable complicity with that genocide. Mahmoud Khalil's unlawful and cruel detention deprived him of his liberty and of being with his wife when she gave birth to their first child. This government's war on First Amendment rights must be challenged by all Americans who value free speech and the Constitution."
Yet while Farbiarz's injunction offers hope to Khalil and his supporters, it does not yet guarantee Khalil's freedom. Farbiarz gave the administration until 9:30 am Friday morning to appeal the ruling, after which time it would take effect.
There is a potential opening for the administration to continue to fight Khalil's release.
As Farbiarz noted, the Trump administration also alleges that Khalil falsified his green card application by omitting his previous work at the Syria Office at the British Embassy in Beirut and with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. However, the judge argued that it was unlikely that this was the underlying cause for Khalil's detention.
"The evidence is that lawful permanent residents are virtually never detained pending removal for the sort of alleged omissions in a lawful-permanent-resident application that the petitioner is charged with here. And that strongly suggests that it is the secretary of state's determination that drives the petitioner's ongoing detention—not the other charge," Farbiaz wrote in granting the injunction.
Still, The New York Times reported that it was "not clear that [Khalil] would be released on Friday if the government were to argue that those allegations were, in fact, the reason for his detention."
Khalil's legal team and family vowed to keep working for his release.
"Today was the first step to justice, but we will not stop fighting until Mahmoud is home with his wife and child," Dratel & Lewis associate Amy Greer said.
Noor Abdalla concluded, "I will not rest until Mahmoud is free, and hope that he can be with us to experience his first Father's Day at home in New York with Deen in his arms."
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'Completely Reprehensible': Trump EPA Attacks Bedrock Power Plant Pollution Rules
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Advocates for public health and the planet denounced a Wednesday announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to decimate regulations on power plant pollution, calling the repeal effort a "completely reprehensible" assault on natural ecosystems and communities nationwide.
"EPA is proposing to repeal all 'greenhouse gas' emissions standards for the power sector under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and to repeal amendments to the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS)," the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed in a statement.
The move is a direct attack on Biden-era regulations aimed at curbing emissions of greenhouse gases and other toxic chemicals from coal-, oil-, and gas-fired power plants, which EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claimed are inhibiting U.S. fossil fuel production and increasing energy costs.
Meanwhile, Moms Clean Air Force director Dominique Browning put out a statement slamming the announced repeals as "a reckless betrayal of EPA's mission to protect human health and the environment."
"Rolling back these protections is ugly and unpatriotic and would make our air filthy and toxic, piling on to this administration's ballooning record of flagrant disregard for protecting people's health," she said. "The proposed elimination of the carbon pollution standards is based on a fictitious and cynical claim by this administration that power plants are not a significant form of climate pollution. This is blatantly false."
"This is a cynical—and dangerous—attempt to stop the remarkable progress America has made in cleaning up climate and air pollution," Browning added. "It is also based on another falsehood: the energy emergency. There is no energy emergency. There is a climate emergency that is growing more severe."
Center for Biological Diversity environmental health attorney Ryan Maher also framed the administration's moves as dishonest.
"As Trump and his EPA continue to shovel dirty old coal down our throats, they're now adding more toxic heavy metals like mercury, lead, and arsenic to the mix," Maher said. "They had to fire hundreds of scientists to advance these destructive policies because they know the facts are indisputable. If these reckless rollbacks are allowed to stand they'll only fan the flames of extreme heat and wildfires, and they'll trigger more child deaths, more cancers, more lung diseases, and more heart attacks."
Similarly warning of the climate and health consequences of the repeals, Sierra Club climate policy director Patrick Drupp declared that "it's completely reprehensible that Donald Trump would seek to roll back these lifesaving standards and do more harm to the American people and our planet just to earn some brownie points with the fossil fuel industry."
"This administration is transparently trading American lives for campaign dollars and the support of fossil fuel companies, and Americans ought to be disgusted and outraged that their government has launched an assault on our health and our future," Drupp added, pledging that his group "will not stand by and let this corrupt administration destroy these critical, lifesaving guardrails."
Trump and Zeldin's long-feared rollbacks could be finalized by the end of this year, according toThe Washington Post. However, legal battles are expected. Julie McNamara from the Union of Concerned Scientists' Climate and Energy Program said Wednesday that "these actions can, should, and will be challenged in court."
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McNamara warned that "there's no meaningful path to meet U.S. climate goals without addressing carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants—and there's no meaningful path to meet global climate goals without the United States."
Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, shared some specifics: "Power plants are the largest industrial source of carbon emissions, spewing more than 1.5 billion tons of greenhouse gases annually."
"The EPA claims this pollution is insignificant—but try telling that to the people who will experience more storms, heatwaves, hospitalizations, and asthma attacks because of this repeal," he said. "What's more, the EPA is trying to repeal toxic air pollution standards for the nation's dirtiest coal plants, allowing the worst actors to keep poisoning the air."
"Ignoring the immense harm to public health from power plant pollution is a clear violation of the law," he concluded. "Our lawyers will be watching closely, and if the EPA finalizes a slapdash effort to repeal those rules, we'll see them in court."
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"Sen. Jim Justice says people 'might get upset' about SNAP cuts," said a government watchdog that's fought against the bill. "No kidding."
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Anti-poverty campaigners and rights advocates have warned for months that the Republican Party's proposed cuts to federal nutrition assistance that tens of millions of Americans rely on would harm families as well as hundreds of thousands of jobs and the economies of cities and states across the nation—and on Wednesday one GOP senator appeared to have finally gotten the message.
Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) toldPolitico that if the Senate approves—or tries to "one-up"—the House's $300 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which President Donald Trump has endorsed, it could cost the party its congressional majority.
"If we don't watch out, people are going to get hurt, people are going to be upset. It's going to be the No. 1 thing on the nightly news all over the place," Justice, who served as West Virginia's governor for eight years before winning his Senate seat last year, told Politico.
The government watchdog Accountable.US rejected Justice's attempt to "dodge the blame" for a proposal his party has been aggressively pushing since Trump took office.
Justice is now one of several Republican governors-turned-senators who have warned against the SNAP provision in the party’s budget reconciliation bill, which would require states to pay 75% of the program's administrative costs and 5-25% of the program's total food aid costs, with states that have higher payment error rates forced to pay more.
Justice's constituents are likely to be disproportionately impacted by the SNAP cuts, with 16% of West Virginians relying on SNAP in 2024. The national average is 12%, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 3.2 million adults, including 800,000 who have school-aged children, could lose their SNAP benefits as a result of what Democratic senators have slammed as the "Big, Beautiful Betrayal."
The sweeping bill also threatens the health coverage of an estimated 13.7 million Americans with cuts to Medicaid and the end of Affordable Care Act tax credits, while the richest households and corporations would benefit from an extension of the GOP's 2017 tax cuts.
Republican lawmakers including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have said they will not vote for a package with cuts to Medicaid.
"Sen. Justice is the latest of many congressional Republicans to voice concern over extreme, draconian cuts to critical programs like SNAP and Medicaid," said Tony Carrk, executive director of the government watchdog Accountable.US. "And there's no question that the budget scam is concerning. Between slashing SNAP benefits for more than 3 million Americans and gutting healthcare for nearly 16 million Americans, this bill will make millions of people poorer, hungrier, and sicker while driving up our national debt."
The Senate Agriculture Committee was examining how to scale back the SNAP cost-sharing proposal on Wednesday, with committee Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) planning to have bill text finalized by the end of the week.
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