Last November, California voters approved a ballot measure to legalize marijuana. Now, the state's lawmakers are formally calling on the federal government to reclassify cannabis.
"The Legislature urges the Congress of the United States to pass a law to reschedule marijuana or cannabis and its derivatives from a Schedule I drug to an alternative schedule, therefore allowing the legal research and development of marijuana or cannabis for medical use," reads a joint resolution approved by the California Assembly on Sept. 14 with a vote of 60 to 10.
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The Controlled Substance Act's Schedule I -- the most restrictive category -- is supposed to be reserved for drugs with no medical value and a high potential for abuse. Researchers have long complained that marijuana's classification there creates additional hurdles that don't exist for studies on other substances.
The California resolution, which previously passed the state Senate by a margin of 34 to two, also calls for changing federal law to allow for "the legal commerce of marijuana or cannabis so that businesses dealing with marijuana or cannabis can use traditional banks or financial institutions for their banking needs, which would result in providing a legal vehicle for those businesses to pay their taxes."
