Colorado congressional members developing plan for federal marijuana protections

Members of Colorado’s congressional delegation on Friday began to hatch a plan to counter Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ move to eliminate Obama-era guidance on marijuana enforcement.

Legislative sources confirmed to The Cannabist that Colorado lawmakers, including Representatives Ed Perlmutter, Diana DeGette and Jared Polis, and Sen. Cory Gardner, held a call Friday afternoon to strategize on a push on marijuana-related measures — specifically crafting a spending bill provision to restrict the Justice Department from interfering with laws in Colorado and the 45 other states that have legalized cannabis in some form.

Perlmutter in an interview with The Cannabist confirmed he participated in the call and said, “there’s now urgency to start moving” on the slew of marijuana-centric bills that have been introduced in Congress but have thus far languished in committee.

“I think the Sessions memo yesterday lit a fire under a lot of people about these bills,” he said.

The clock is ticking on an immediate fix: hitching marijuana protection measures onto upcoming spending legislation being hashed out to avoid a government shutdown on Jan. 19.

Read the full story online from The Cannibist.