Sens. Cory Booker, Rand Paul and Kirsten Gillbrand are joining forces to legalize medicinal marijuana.
Booker and Gillibrand, Democrats from New Jersey and New York, respectively, will join Paul — a Kentucky Republican — on Tuesday afternoon to unveil the first-ever bill put forth in the Senate to end a federal prohibition of medical marijuana.
The bill would also allow patients, doctors and business in the 23 states plus Washington, D.C. that legalize and regulate medicinal marijuana to do so without breaking federal law.
The three Senators will announce the bipartisan legislation in a Senate press conference Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. The Drug Policy Alliance, which revealed the news of the bill Monday afternoon, will have a subsequent teleconference at 3 p.m Tuesday.
“Almost half the states have legalized marijuana for medical use; it’s long past time to end the federal ban,” Michael Collins, policy manager for the Drug Policy Alliance, said. “This bipartisan legislation allows states to set their own medical marijuana policies and ends the criminalization of patients, their families, and the caregivers and dispensary owners and employees who provide them their medicine.”
The Marijuana Policy Project and Americans for Safe Access joined with the Drug Policy Alliance to consult in the drafting of the bill, officially called The Compassionate Access, Research, Expansion and Respect States (CARERS) act, the Washington Post reported.
