Iowa Republicans Ashley Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Randy Feenstra know marijuana prohibition doesn’t work

For the first time this century, Republicans in Congress are sponsoring a bill to legalize marijuana at the federal level. As usual, Iowa’s GOP delegation is slow on the uptake.

The States Reform Act was introduced this week by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and a few other House Republicans. The bill would lift nonsensical federal restrictions against cannabis, allow for modest taxation and regulation, and clear the way for interstate sales.

By failing to act, federal Republicans are in effect promoting lawlessness and high taxes.

Almost every state, including Iowa, allows some legal access to marijuana but members of Congress have created a big mess for the states through their inaction.

No Iowans in Congress are among the initial sponsors of the Republican marijuana bill. That’s disappointing since they should know better than most that the status quo is untenable. Policymakers in Iowa have spent the past few years wringing their hands over the legal status of the state’s medical marijuana program.

In their previous jobs as state legislators, Iowa’s three House Republicans voted to advance medical marijuana policies that clearly violate federal law.

U.S. Reps. Ashley Hinson and Randy Feenstra both backed a 2017 law in Iowa allowing licensed businesses to manufacture and sell medical cannabis products. U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks wasn’t in the Legislature then but she too has supported Iowa’s illegal medical program.

Hinson, Miller-Meeks and Feenstra are on the record explicitly acknowledging the tension they have created between state and federal law. They all voted for a bill in the Iowa Legislature last year directing state bureaucrats to request guarantees that Iowa’s federal funding would not be jeopardized over the state operating an illegal medical cannabis program.

According to federal law, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I substance, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no medicinal value. Removing that incorrect designation, as the States Reform Act would do, is a necessary step toward rational marijuana policy.

The bill would not force states to legalize marijuana but it would make things much easier for states like Iowa that are already overseeing marijuana sales.

“Every state is different. Cannabis reform at the federal level must take all of this into account. And it’s past time federal law codifies this reality,” Mace, a first-term representative, said in a news release.

Under federal prohibition, both medical and recreational marijuana businesses are subject to unnecessary compliance requirements and significant tax penalties. That inevitably results in higher prices for consumers or in dispensaries going out of business — or both, as we have seen in Iowa.

Iowa Republicans have supported bills in Congress to cautiously expand medical marijuana and to give marijuana businesses access to banking services. Miller-Meeks this year joined Mace in introducing a bill to bolster medical cannabis research for veterans.

However, none of them has yet endorsed legislation to remove marijuana from Schedule I, the key piece to any real reform agenda. Half measures are better than nothing but they won’t get us where we need to be.

Marijuana legalization is inevitable. The federal government is not going to go back to doing major raids on legitimate weed businesses in legal states. By failing to act, federal Republicans are in effect promoting lawlessness and high taxes.

(319) 339-3156; adam.sullivan@thegazette.com