House votes yes to end federal cannabis prohibition

Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith joins Kristin Myers to discuss the House's historic vote to decriminalize marijuana at a federal level.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: I want to bring on Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith now to talk about some things that are happening on the hill. A couple of updates for you guys.

So Jess, I want to start first with that vote in Congress to decriminalize marijuana. The vote happened a little bit earlier today. Give us all of the updates.

JESSICA SMITH: Yeah, the House passed the MORE Act, 228 to 164. So this is a really big moment for legalization advocates. This is going to end that discrepancy that we see between federal and state law.

But it's really important to note here that the Senate is probably not going to take up this bill at this point. It faces a very uncertain future in the Senate. We did see five Republicans vote for this bill. And then we saw six Democratic lawmakers oppose it. So it was a bipartisan vote, just barely.

Republicans really have been bashing Democrats for taking up this legislation before they figure out a deal on COVID relief. But we did hear from Democrats on the House floor today, saying that they've already passed two versions of the HEROES Act. They're blaming Republicans for stimulus talks stalling.

But regardless, this is a historic moment for advocates of legalization. People I talked to say whether or not the Senate actually moves forward on this, this sends a very strong message to the contrary of what more and more people are wanting.