Business View Magazine | September 2019

22 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2019 ADVOCACY CORNER “As we get closer to federal reform, the conversation about what form that should take is intensifying. And we expect in the next several years for Congress to finally resolve the conflicts between state and federal laws and allow the states to make their own decisions on these cannabis policies.” BVM: Will that be one of the biggest challenges going forward? AT A GLANCE MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT (MPP) WHAT: U.S. organization focused on changing marijuana laws WHERE: Headquarters in Washington, D.C. WEBSITE: www.mpp.org Schweich: “There are a number of proposals, right now, to resolve this issue at the federal level. Bills like the Safe Banking Act just focus on the banking issues faced by medical cannabis and recreational businesses, and there are broader reforms such as the STATES Act, and also the MORE Act which was just introduced. So there are some holistic, far-reaching reform proposals at the federal level – the big question is: Which of these bills will actually be enacted by Congress and when will that happen? It’s difficult to predict what Congress is going to do.” O’Keefe: “Some areas of federal reform, particularly lend themselves to federal uniform standards. Things like: What pesticides are allowed? But even once we have federal reform, states will continue to serve as laboratories of democracy. Thousands of businesses have already started operating under existing state regulations, and the states have their own stamp on how they want to approach legalization. So, we’ll continue to see a lot of differences from state to state. “So far, MPP’s focus has been mostly, or entirely, within the United States; changing laws at the state level. We initially focused almost entirely on medical marijuana laws; about 13 of the recent medical marijuana laws are ones that MPP either spearheaded the ballot campaign for, in the cases of voter initiatives, or where we led the state legislative push. We spearheaded seven of the recent decriminalization laws that imposed a simple fine instead of jail time for possession of marijuana. And out of the 11 legalization laws, MPP led the charge in eight of those cases,