Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) kept up his “Festivus” (for the rest of us) tradition last week, noting the Seinfeld-popularized celebration with an airing of resentments that contains leveling Democrats for failing to put forth cannabis banking reform despite having a blue majority and executive backing via the Biden & presidency.
This is roughly the fifth occurrence that Paul has discussed cannabis in his yearly Twitter feed.
Summarily, Senator Rand Paul expressed that “Democrats run the House, United States Senate, and White House, and we haven’t come close to getting cannabis banking reform bills advanced,” he shared, exclaiming the bipartisan Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act. That measure has cleared the House of Representatives to some capacity nearly half a dozen times. Despite this, the discourse among Democrats over cannabis policy triage went left during the most recent attempt to pass the measure as part of a wide-scale defense measure.
“This should be a total no-brainer, as numerous states have legalized now, and we need enterprise to function,” he shared. “I would go considerably further and terminate the federal war on cannabis altogether, however, at LEAST let legal retail cannabis enterprise operates as a legal business.”
‘It presumably doesn’t support the matter that a couple of Democrat lawmakers are almost as aged as the propaganda flick Reefer Madness and obviously gave it two thumbs up Ebert & Roper-style when they viewed it,” he generally stated, seemingly referencing United States Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Don’t feel bad if you were confused to hear that Paul was calling out Senator Schumer. We here at Stickyleaf have covered the Senator in recent months who APPEARS to be doing what he can for advancing cannabis reform. Senator Schumer is pro-legalization and completing a complete reform bill, however, SAFE Banking backers believe he was mainly responsible for keeping the unpretentious measure out of the recently-passed National Defense Authorization Act.
“The failed war on cannabis is among the numerous idiotic things Congress does, but it’s by no means the stupidest,” he shared on Twitter. “Each year,, hundreds of billions of your tax dollars are squandered on petty cannabis enforcement.”
In 2020, Rand Paul’s cannabis-related Festivus grudge involved $3 million in state spending on studies that examined the cannabis edible consumption practices of more geriatric people living in San Francisco. He incorporated that in an administration “Waste Report.”
“They must not have spent enough time around people who adore cannabis. You do NOT need to pay [cannabis advocates] to talk about the plant,” he quipped. “What’s next, national funding to get individuals to blog more about their Keto and CrossFit regiments?”
Four years ago, the senator ended his Festivus Twitter thread on a cheerful note, referencing that he was capable of working with Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and discussing “some thoughts about bipartisan cannabis policy reforms we could work on, like industrial hemp legalization and criminal justice updates.”
Subsequently, the policy in a thread the following year, he references that he worked with Former United States Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on farming measures that included guidance on federally permitting industrial hemp, “which was a huge success.
“However, you should have witnessed the first meeting [Paul & McConnell] had where I clarified what hemp was to him,” he annexed.
Nearly a decade ago, Paul proposed to Booker that the two of them work on mandatory minimum sentencing changes, to which Cory Booker responded, “Yes If u add reforming Federal Hemp & Cannabis measures you’ve got yourself a deal!”
We can’t wait to see how the most recent Festivus (for the rest of us) will impact cannabis reform this year.