Senator Lee believes the federal government should deschedule marijuana. He has said cannabis companies need to have access to banks, and states should decide what policy is best for them.
Holds office U.S. Senate
S.1008 - Therapeutic Hemp Medical Access Act of 2017 (2017-18)
S.1764 - CARERS Act of 2017 (2017-18)
S. 1333: Therapeutic Hemp Medical Access Act of 2015 (2015-16)
"Keeping cannabis as a Schedule 1 controlled substance is probably not realistic,” he said. 4/9/21
“Keeping cannabis as a schedule 1 drug is no longer realistic,” said Lee to House Democrats.. “We have to do something federally. 3/1/19
"To illustrate the need for changes in drug sentencing, Lee highlighted the case of his constituent, Weldon Angelos, the 36-year-old father of three from Utah, who was sentenced to 55 years in a federal prison after being arrested for selling marijuana three times to a police informant. When Lee was a federal prosecutor in Salt Lake City in 2004, one of Lee's colleagues prosecuted Angelos. But Lee has now called on President Obama to grant him clemency. On Tuesday, the former federal judge who sentenced him, Paul G. Cassell, also called on President Obama to grant him clemency."
2/10/16
“We are at a weird inflection point,” he said. “If we were starting from a blank slate, I think it would always have made more sense for a thing like marijuana to have been regulated at a state level because this is a commodity that can be grown, harvested, packaged, sold and consumed entirely intrastate. And I think it probably would have made more sense to give the states the authority at the outset to make that decision on their own.” https://www.marijuanamoment.net/gop-senator-says-congress-must-pass-marijuana-banking-bill-that-hes-yet-to-cosponsor/
The senator then talked about banking issues for the marijuana industry, saying that states have seen “an increase in duffle bags with $400,000 in cash making their rounds through the communities of Denver and elsewhere in Colorado because you cannot lawfully bank or electronically transfer money that is involved in marijuana.”
“So at a minimum, Congress is going to have to do something to deal with that,” he said. “This is a public safety problem, to have this much cash in circulation. At a minimum, we’re going to have to lift the banking restriction. I don’t see another way around it.” https://www.marijuanamoment.net/gop-senator-says-congress-must-pass-marijuana-banking-bill-that-hes-yet-to-cosponsor/
Email: mike_lee@lee.senate.gov
Web: https://www.pinterest.com/SenMikeLee/
Phone: 202-224-5444
363 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510