Maggie Hart [email protected]
Washington DC - Hoy, el líder de la mayoría del Senado estadounidense, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), y los senadores Cory Booker (D-NJ) y Ron Wyden (D-OR) reintrodujeron la Ley de Oportunidades y Administración del Cannabis (CAOA). Joined by fourteen other original cosponsors, the CAOA would put an end to the failed practice of arresting and incarcerating people for marijuana, reinvest in communities that have been harmed by marijuana criminalization, and ensure the legal regulation of marijuana protects public health and creates economic opportunities for Americans.
“The reintroduction of the CAOA in the Senate represents a critical opportunity for Congress to adopt marijuana reform that prioritizes the health, safety, and wellbeing of everyday Americans,” said Maritza Perez Medina, Director of Federal Affairs of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Recent federal orders to advance marijuana reform show how far public opinion and our movement have come. A majority of people across the political spectrum recognize that marijuana criminalization has been a failure and support legal regulation that works.”
“The question is not if, but how, we continue on the path toward legalization and repair. Do we adopt a piecemeal approach that largely benefits corporate interests and stops short of ending criminalization? Or do we embrace a comprehensive approach that ends federal criminalization, removes all barriers to research into health risks and benefits, and ensures that workers, small businesses, and patients have the protections and opportunities they deserve?”
The reintroduction comes just a few months after President Trump’s Department of Justice moved to reschedule medical marijuana and FDA-approved marijuana products from Schedule I (the most strict placement) to Schedule III (a less strict placement) on the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), and scheduled a hearing to consider the broader rescheduling of marijuana. Under Schedule III, marijuana businesses could receive tax breaks, and some barriers to marijuana research would be lifted, but most Americans would not see meaningful relief.
The CAOA, in contrast, would fully decriminalize marijuana, at the federal level by removing it from the CSA, ending federal marijuana arrests and expunging marijuana records to ensure marijuana records do not block people from jobs, housing, and federal benefits. The CAOA would also protect workers in the marijuana industry, ensure small businesses and entrepreneurs can benefit from legal markets, set limits on hemp-derived THC and treats products with THC above those limits like marijuana, and invest in health education and youth prevention. Doctors, advocates, and regulatory experts echoed the call to support the CAOA.
Bryon Adinoff, MD, Presidente de Médicos por la Reforma de la Política de Drogas:
“Rescheduling cannabis to Schedule III would represent an important acknowledgment of medical reality, but it still falls far short of the comprehensive reform that is needed. Cannabis would remain within the Controlled Substances Act, preserving many of the barriers that have distorted research, limited product standardization, and placed physicians and patients in legal uncertainty for decades. The federal government has already effectively conceded that cannabis has accepted medical use in the United States, a position that is incompatible with continued criminalization at the federal level. What is ultimately needed is legislation that provides a regulatory framework and full federal descheduling, such as the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, so cannabis policy can finally be approached as a matter of public health rather than criminal law.”
Dasheeda Dawson, Board Chair, Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC):
“Cannabis regulators across the country understand that rescheduling alone does not resolve the core failures of prohibition. Instead, it risks creating a two-tiered industry, where federally protected businesses move ahead while justice-impacted communities still bear the burden of enforcement and exclusion. We cannot regulate our way to equity while preserving the same criminal legal framework that caused the harm. The CAOA offers a more comprehensive path because it treats cannabis policy as inseparable from restorative justice, community reinvestment, fair market access, and protection against monopolization. Real reform means dismantling the architecture of the drug war — not rebranding it.”
Benita Jain, Senior Advisor and Federal Policy Counsel, Immigrant Defense Project:
“For decades, Black and Latinx communities have been targeted disproportionately for marijuana-related activity. These harms are then multiplied when ICE and CBP are empowered to use marijuana arrests and convictions to justify immigration detention and deportation. Even in states that have decriminalized marijuana, immigrants remain at risk and shut out of the legal industry because of federal law. The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act recognizes that the solution to these double harms is to deschedule and regulate marijuana and to ensure that ICE cannot rip people away from their loved ones based on marijuana activity. The CAOA recognizes that simply moving marijuana into a different federal schedule, as the administration has proposed, does not protect people — from unfair policing or from abusive federal immigration agencies that cannot be trusted to act with human dignity and decency. It is a milestone in the fight for immigrant justice.”
Sameera Hafiz, Director of Policy, Immigrant Legal Resource Center:
“The ILRC advocates for the complete descheduling of cannabis and for reinvestment in communities of color that have been devastated by decades of broken enforcement-first policy. The entanglement between the criminal legal system and immigration system in drug policy creates an unfair reality where immigrants face double punishment. The sad truth is that after serving a sentence for a cannabis-related crime, an immigrant still faces consequences in the immigration system, which may include incarceration, losing their immigration status, and even deportation to their country of citizenship. The descheduling and decriminalization of marijuana proposed in the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act is the only way forward to address and repair the harm caused to immigrant communities.”
Melody Fleischer, Cannabis Policy & Reform Advocate, Free Hearts:
“Rescheduling cannabis is not justice. Moving cannabis to a different schedule does nothing for the people still incarcerated, living with criminal records, or shut out of opportunity because of outdated federal policy. People and families harmed by the drug war cannot continue to be left behind while legal industries profit under a system that still treats cannabis as a criminal issue at the federal level. The Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act is necessary because meaningful reform must include descheduling, expungement, reinvestment, and repair for communities most impacted by prohibition. We need federal action that ends prohibition and replaces it with a framework rooted in justice, accountability, and clarity.”
Fondo: Read the full fact sheet here.
The CAOA would:
Original cosponsors of the legislation include Senators Murray (D-WA), Merkley (D-OR), Gillibrand (D-NY), Warren (D-MA), Markey (D-MA), Bennet (D-CO), Peters (D-MI), Smith (D-MN), Hickenlooper (D-CO), Luján (D-NM), Padilla (D-CA), Warnock (D-GA), Fetterman (D-PA), and Welch (D-VT).
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Acerca de la Alianza de Políticas de Drogas
El Alianza de Políticas de Drogas (DPA) Aborda los daños del consumo de drogas y su criminalización a través de soluciones políticas, organización y educación pública. Abogamos por un enfoque holístico de las drogas que priorice la salud, el apoyo social y el bienestar de la comunidad. La DPA se opone a los enfoques punitivos que desestabilizan a las personas, bloquean el acceso a la atención médica y agotan los recursos de las comunidades. Creemos que la regulación de las drogas debe basarse en la evidencia, la salud, la equidad y los derechos humanos. En colaboración con otros movimientos, cambiamos las leyes, promovemos la justicia y salvamos vidas.