An Oregon lawmaker is off to Los Angeles to wrangle support for a proposal calling on Congress to remove marijuana from a federal list of controlled substances.
Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Portland, leaves Sunday to attend this year's legislative summit of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
There she'll advocate for a proposed directive that would push the national group to lobby more aggressively to pull pot from scheduling under the Controlled Substances Act. The summit runs July 30 through Aug. 2.
The offices of Senate Majority Leader Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, and Senate Minority Leader Jackie Winters, R-Salem, have been involved crafting the proposal's language, said Stephen Watson, Burdick's legislative director. Neither Burdick nor Winters is attending the conference, but staff members are going to push for the proposal, he said.
The directive will first go to committee and then, potentially, a vote before all of the states. At least three-quarters of them need to approve the proposal for it to pass, and states only get a single vote.
Oregon lawmakers have successfully found support for pot policy resolutions in the past, including one that passed in 2016. A similar resolution passed in 2017. But this year, Oregon is chasing a directive, which has a little more oompf.
Steiner Hayward said a resolution is important because it expresses the general will of the body — but a directive prioritizes lobbying efforts on the issue.
Watson characterized it as "essentially the highest level of commitment."
Recreational marijuana is legal all along the West Coast, from California to Washington. Nine states in total, along with Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational pot. At least 30 states have legalized medical marijuana.
"This is not a fringe-element issue anymore," Steiner Hayward said. "This is completely mainstream."
President Donald Trump in April signaled he is open to leaving marijuana laws up to states, cutting a deal with U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner in exchange for the Colorado Republican lifting a hold on Department of Justice nominees.
But efforts to pull pot from a federal list of illegal controlled substances — which would ease the way for banking and interstate commerce — have yet to pan out.
The proposed directive before the national lawmakers' conference states "legitimate business enterprises need access to financial institutions that provide capital, security, efficiency, and record keeping."
Oregon's marijuana industry has been criticized recently, with federal and state officials voicing concerns about people diverting marijuana grown here onto the black market.
Oregon Health Authority officials expressed such worries in July when they released an internal review of the agency's medical marijuana program. The report revealed regulatory holes through which pot could be directed away from legal patients and toward illicit customers.
Email jbach@statesmanjournal.com, call (503) 399-6714 or follow on Twitter @jonathanmbach.