In a story of strange political bedfellows, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is working with the office of Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner on an upcoming bill that would prevent the federal government from interfering with the marijuana system here and in other states that have legalized.
As noted by NORML political director Justin Strekal, Gardner has confirmed that he's teaming up with Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, "to craft legislation that would reduce the tension between federal prohibition and states that have moved forward with legalizing marijuana for medicinal or adult use. And we're working with a number of offices to make sure the language is going to be right and palatable to a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senate."
RELATED: Sen. Cory Gardner to Bring Bipartisan Cannabis Bill to Senate Floor
Senator Gardner's office hasn't returned our calls; when and if someone gets back to us, we'll update this post. But late last month, Gardner told Yahoo News that "basically, this is a states' rights bill. This is a federalism bill that says if a state like Colorado decides to move forward on medical marijuana, recreational marijuana, CBDs ...hemp, that that activity is going to be lawfully, legally carried out."
To put it mildly, Gardner, who's tried to portray himself as a moderate in advance of what looks to be a challenging re-election bid in 2020, has done a complete 180 on legal marijuana. He opposed Amendment 64, the 2012 measure that legalized limited recreational marijuana sales in Colorado, and the following year, he wrote letters to then-attorney general Eric Holder and President Barack Obama ripping the so-called Cole memo, which allowed marijuana businesses to continue to operate in places like Colorado as long as they obeyed state law. The gist of his message was that if Colorado could casually ignore the federal Controlled Substances Act, which lists marijuana as a Schedule I narcotic, then states could presumably refuse to abide by Obamacare, too.
