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By NATALIE FERTIG

08/28/2020 01:44 PM EDT

Updated: 08/28/2020 06:12 PM EDT

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The House will vote on legalizing marijuana next month.

States would still have to vote to legalize the drug. Marijuana is already legal in 11 states.

The MORE Act would remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act and erase some cannabis criminal records. The vote will come during the September work period, according to an email Majority Whip Jim Clyburn’s (D-S.C.) office that was sent to members Friday.

The email also asked members to indicate if they would support the MORE Act by Sept. 3.

Why is this important? Neither chamber of Congress has ever voted on removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act.

“A floor vote on the bill would be the greatest federal cannabis reform accomplishment in over 50 years,” said Randal Meyer of the Global Alliance for Cannabis Commerce.

This bill, H.R. 3884 (116), was introduced by House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) last fall and passed the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 24-10 in November. Reps Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Tom McClintock (Calif.) were the only Republicans on the committee to vote for the bill.

Does this mean cannabis will be legal? No, the odds of this bill passing in the Senate are still very slim, given the opposition of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. During this week’s Republicans National Convention, speakers criticized Democrats for purportedly prioritizing marijuana sales during the pandemic over more important services like health care and religious gatherings.

Summary: H.R.3884 — 116th Congress (2019-2020)
There is one summary for H.R.3884. Bill summaries are authored by CRS.

Shown Here:
Introduced in House (07/23/2019)
Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act of 2019 or the MORE Act of 2019

This bill decriminalizes marijuana.

Specifically, it removes marijuana from the list of scheduled substances under the Controlled Substances Act and eliminates criminal penalties for an individual who manufactures, distributes, or possesses marijuana.

The bill also makes other changes, including the following:

-replaces statutory references to marijuana and marihuana with cannabis,
-requires the Bureau of Labor Statistics to regularly publish demographic data on cannabis business owners and employees,
-establishes a trust fund to support various programs and services for individuals and businesses in communities impacted by the war on drugs,
-imposes a 5% tax on cannabis products and requires revenues to be deposited into the trust fund,
-makes Small Business Administration loans and services available to entities that are cannabis-related legitimate businesses or service providers,
-prohibits the denial of federal public benefits to a person on the basis of certain cannabis-related conduct or convictions,
-prohibits the denial of benefits and protections under immigration laws on the basis of a cannabis-related event (e.g., conduct or a conviction), and
-establishes a process to expunge convictions and conduct sentencing review hearings related to federal cannabis offenses.