Among the loudest conservative voices calling for marijuana rescheduling is first-term Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, who last April introduced bipartisan legislation that would transfer marijuana to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act. His new position on rescheduling marijuana also aligns Lamborn — a high-ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee — with a growing cadre of influential veterans groups clamoring for the federal government to loosen restrictions on research into medical marijuana. Last May, The American Legion, the nation’s largest veterans service organization demanded President Donald Trump reschedule marijuana to permit research into its medical efficacy in treating traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Studies that do receive federal approval have to utilize marijuana grown by University of Mississippi, the only federally approved cultivator.
After U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Cole Memo in early January, 69 members of Congress, including six of Colorado’s seven members, signed a bipartisan letter sent to House leadership requesting protections from federal incursion for states that have legalized marijuana.
Noticeably absent was the signature of Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs. He also withheld his signature from a November 2017 bipartisan letter signed by 66 members of Congress requesting leadership extend the “Rohrabacher-Blumenauer” amendment, which forbids the Justice Department from spending federal funds to interfere with state medical...
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