The Global Alliance for Cannabis Commerce (GACC) has released comprehensive model federal legislation to legalize medicinal and adult-use cannabis across the United States.
The bill is designed to end cannabis prohibition nationwide and create a broad regulatory framework that is focused on the needs of patients, the industry, and communities that have been impacted the most from marijuana criminalization and the drug war.
“It is crucial for federal lawmakers to understand the nature of the modern cannabis market as federal prohibition ends,” says GACC executive director, Randal John Meyer. “Without sensible policy to regulate cannabis—like that contained in our model legislation—piecemeal fixes are likely to result in unforeseen regulatory omnishambles that will perpetuate confusion, harm and inefficiencies, undermining or destroying huge parts of the cannabis market.”
“The problems with federal cannabis law span vast areas of concern—from criminal law to pesticide use,” says Meyer. “Half-measures simply will not do for patients, adult consumers, or the 200,000-plus employees of a multi-billion dollar industry.”
The model bill would create a framework for the Food and Drug Administration and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to regulate the cultivation, processing, distribution, and sales of cannabis products in and between states that have enacted medical or adult-use marijuana laws.
In addition to providing patients safe with access to medicinal cannabis and streamlining processes for businesses to invest in the United States, GACC’s model legislation is designed to aid communities impacted by cannabis prohibition by retraining law enforcement and assisting in criminal record expungement for those with non-violent cannabis offenses on their record.
GACC says that Americans will not see the benefits of ending prohibition without a smart and welcoming trade policy for a legal cannabis market in the U.S. which Grand View Research predicts will be worth more than $66 billion by the end of 2025.
