The MORE Act removes cannabis from the federal Controlled Substances Act, creates a new federal excise-tax framework for cannabis products that funds an Opportunity Trust Fund, and requires courts to clear many historic federal cannabis convictions or reconsider sentences for people still serving time. It also directs federal agencies to stand up a Cannabis Justice Office, to run reinvestment grants, and to expand Small Business Administration support aimed at improving equity in the newly legal market.
Professionals should care because the bill converts a long-standing criminal policy decision into an administrative and tax regime with immediate compliance obligations for producers and service providers, a significant workload for federal courts and agencies, and new funding flows designed to prioritize communities harmed by prohibition. The measure also leaves open detailed interagency rulemaking on product regulation, employee testing, transport safety, and tax administration — all of which will matter to regulators, employers, banks, and state governments.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill removes marijuana and tetrahydrocannabinols from the federal drug schedules and directs the Attorney General to finalize rulemaking within 180 days with retroactive effect. It creates a federal excise tax (initial percentage rates that later convert to per-ounce/per-gram equivalents) and places net revenues into an Opportunity Trust Fund with statutorily prescribed allocations for reinvestment and small-business support. The statute also mandates automatic expungement of many federal cannabis convictions and courts must hold resentencing reviews for people still serving sentences.
Who It Affects
Licensed cannabis producers, importers, and any business that sells or services cannabis in States where it is legal; federal courts and the Bureau of Prisons; the Department of Justice, Treasury, HHS, DOT, and the SBA; small business support networks (SBDCs, SCORE, veteran and women’s programs); and communities and individuals with prior cannabis arrests or convictions.
Why It Matters
This is a comprehensive federal pivot: it ends federal criminal exposure for cannabis, creates the first dedicated federal excise-tax regime and trust fund targeted at reinvestment, and builds explicit federal equity programs to steer capital and licensing relief. The bill also generates immediate operational duties — permits, bonds, inventories, new taxes, packaging/labeling rules, and a court-driven expungement pipeline — that will require extensive agency rulemaking and administrative capacity.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill instructs the Attorney General to remove marijuana and tetrahydrocannabinols from the Controlled Substances Act and implements a cascade of conforming edits across federal statutes. That removal is explicitly retroactive: for federal purposes the rulemaking is treated as effective on enactment for offenses, pending cases, and convictions.
The text preserves the FDA’s authority over drug products and carves out agency power to set safety and labeling rules, while directing HHS to hold public meetings on product regulation.
To fund reinvestment the bill establishes a new chapter in the Internal Revenue Code imposing a federal tax on cannabis products. It phases in percentage-based levies for the first five years, then switches to specified per-ounce or per-gram equivalent rates tied to prevailing market prices; it also imposes a $1,000 annual occupational tax per production premise and creates bond and permit requirements and bonded production facilities.
Net revenues flow into a statutory Opportunity Trust Fund with fixed shares allocated to DOJ-administered community reinvestment and other programs and two SBA-directed equity programs.The bill creates a Cannabis Justice Office inside DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs to run a Community Reinvestment Grant Program that funds job training, reentry services, legal aid including expungement assistance, substance-use treatment, and youth programs. The SBA must stand up a Cannabis Restorative Opportunity Program for loans and technical assistance to socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses and an Equitable Licensing Grant Program to help jurisdictions reduce barriers to licensing and support applicants from communities harmed by prohibition.On relief for past convictions the statute requires courts to expunge many federal cannabis convictions (covering convictions entered after May 1, 1971, through enactment) and to seal associated records; people currently serving sentences can seek resentencing review, and courts must vacate sentences and reimpose any remaining penalties consistent with the law as it would have been at the time of the offense.
The bill also bars denial of federal public benefits on the basis of cannabis use or past cannabis convictions and removes cannabis as a disqualifying controlled substance for immigration purposes.Operationally the bill is heavy on compliance: new permitting, packaging and labeling standards, mandatory inventories and records, civil and criminal penalties for evasion, and administrative reporting and studies (BLS demographic data; GAO and Comptroller General studies; DOT, NIOSH, and Education studies). It leaves many key definitions and enforcement mechanics to Treasury, DOJ, HHS, SBA, and DOT rulemaking within specified timeframes.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Attorney General must finalize rulemaking to remove marijuana and tetrahydrocannabinols from the CSA within 180 days and the descheduling is applied retroactively to affect past offenses and pending cases.
The bill creates an excise-tax chapter: initial percentage-based taxes (5% for the first two years, rising to 8% by year five) then convert to per-ounce or per-gram equivalent rates tied to prevailing market prices; net revenues are credited to an Opportunity Trust Fund.
Opportunity Trust Fund allocations are statutory: 50% for DOJ community reinvestment grants, 10% for additional DOJ programs, and two 20% shares for SBA-administered small-business restorative and equitable-licensing programs.
Federal courts must automatically expunge qualifying federal cannabis convictions entered between May 1, 1971 and enactment and seal records; people currently under sentence get a resentencing review with appointed counsel if indigent, and courts may vacate and reimpose sentences consistent with the new law.
The SBA and related federal small-business programs must treat cannabis-related legitimate businesses and ancillary service providers as eligible for loans, microloans, SBDC/SCORE/VA outreach, debenture financing, and disaster assistance; equitable licensing grants also incentivize local reforms.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Descheduling and conforming criminal-law edits
This section removes marijuana and tetrahydrocannabinols from Schedule I and directs the AG to complete regulatory removal from the schedules within 180 days, with retroactive effect to the date of enactment for offenses, cases, and convictions. It also carries out a long list of technical edits across federal statutes (criminal penalties, interception statutes, transportation safety statutes and agency definitions) to excise statutory references to marijuana and to preserve specific agency powers (e.g., the FDA’s drug authority). Practically, descheduling eliminates federal criminal liability for conduct limited to cannabis but triggers a broad set of downstream regulatory and definitional changes that agencies must reconcile.
Federal cannabis excise tax, Opportunity Trust Fund, and tax administration
The Internal Revenue Code additions create a new excise tax regime (Chapter 56): an initial percentage tax schedule for the first five years that then converts to per-ounce/per-gram equivalents based on prevailing prices; a $1,000 annual occupational tax per production premise; rules for tax liability, returns, payment schedules, bonds, packaging and labeling requirements, import/export rules, refunds/drawbacks, and extensive penalties for fraud or diversion. Net revenues are credited to an Opportunity Trust Fund and are appropriated automatically for statutorily specified shares. The tax design pairs a transitional revenue approach with product- and THC-measurement mechanics that Treasury must operationalize, including the price indices and the conversion methodology.
Permits, bonds, bonded production, recordkeeping and enforcement
The Code requires producers and export warehouse proprietors to post bonds, obtain permits, run operations on bonded premises, and comply with strict inventory, packaging, labeling and reporting rules; unauthorized production is criminalized. It establishes procedures for transfers in bond, withdrawal exemptions for research and government use, and precise rules for import/re-export cases. The statute creates civil and criminal penalties calibrated to tax evasion and diversion risks, and empowers the Secretary of the Treasury to reject permits or bonds that don’t adequately protect revenue—creating immediate facility-level compliance obligations for any commercial cannabis operation.
Cannabis Justice Office and Community Reinvestment Grant Program
DOJ must establish a Cannabis Justice Office inside the Office of Justice Programs to administer a Community Reinvestment Grant Program funded from the Opportunity Trust Fund. Grants support targeted services—job training, reentry, legal aid (including expungement assistance), youth programs, substance use treatment and health education—for people and communities harmed by the War on Drugs. The Office will be staffed under a directed hire plan and has explicit grant-making responsibility; the statute sets content priorities for eligible applicants (nonprofits with community representation) and ties funding to measurable program categories.
SBA restorative and equitable-licensing programs; broadened SBA access
The SBA must create the Cannabis Restorative Opportunity Program (loans and technical assistance under the microloan/7(m) authorities) and an Equitable Licensing Grant Program to help states/localities reduce licensing barriers for applicants from heavily impacted communities. Parallel statutory language forces SBA counseling networks and federal small-business programs (SBDC, SCORE, Women’s Business Centers, VBOCs, microloans, disaster loans, 7(a) guarantees, SBIC debentures, and state/local development company programs) to serve cannabis-related legitimate businesses and service providers and not deny services solely for cannabis involvement, changing longstanding de facto exclusions and expanding access to federal assistance.
Expungement, resentencing, sealing and related court mechanics
The bill directs federal districts to conduct comprehensive reviews and issue orders expunging non-violent federal cannabis convictions (and related arrests) entered after May 1, 1971 through enactment. For people serving sentences, courts must hold resentencing review hearings on motion, appoint counsel for indigent defendants, and may vacate existing sentences and impose any remaining penalties consistent with the new statutory framework. Expunged records must be sealed and are only disclosable by further court order; an express exclusion prevents expungement for those who received an aggravating-role enhancement under USSG 3B1.1(a). These directives create a large, court-driven administrative project.
Data collection and studies (BLS, GAO/CG, DOT, NIOSH, Education)
The Bureau of Labor Statistics must compile and publish demographic data on cannabis business owners and employees (age, race/ethnicity, education, veteran/disability status, etc.) with confidentiality protections. The bill requires multiple studies and reports: GAO/Comptroller General reviews of SBA program reach and demographic impacts; a DOT study on tools for determining marijuana impairment in drivers; NIOSH research and best-practice guidance on workplace impacts; an Education Department study on school impacts; and a broader societal-impact study compiling a long list of public-safety, fiscal and health metrics. These mandated analyses are intended to inform ongoing policy calibration but also create new reporting demands on agencies.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Justice across all five countries.
Explore Justice in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Individuals with prior federal cannabis convictions — automatic expungement and sealed records will erase many historical federal records and restore access to jobs, housing, and benefits for people not under current sentence.
- Communities disproportionately impacted by prohibition — statutory grant priorities and Opportunity Trust Fund allocations direct measurable resources (job training, reentry, legal aid, substance-use services) to those communities.
- Socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses — SBA restorative loans, technical assistance, and equitable-licensing grants are designed to lower capital and licensing barriers for these entrepreneurs.
- Ancillary service providers and state-legal operators — the bill’s explicit inclusion of service providers in SBA eligibility and the removal of federal criminal exposure allow banks, SBDCs, and vendors to contract and support more market participants (subject to regulatory guidance).
- Researchers and public-health agencies — removal from the CSA and mandated HHS/FDA meetings clear the path for product-safety research and regulatory design (while preserving FDA authority over drug products).
Who Bears the Cost
- Licensed producers, importers and retailers — the new excise tax, occupational tax, bond/permit regime, packaging/labeling, and inventory/record-keeping obligations impose direct compliance costs and ongoing tax liabilities.
- Federal courts and public defenders — courts must process large-scale expungement orders and resentencing hearings; indigent defendants are entitled to counsel in resentencing which will strain defense resources and court dockets.
- Treasury, DOJ, HHS, DOT, SBA and BLS — the agencies named must staff rulemaking, enforcement, data collection, grant-making, and studies; the bill creates multi-year administrative workloads without an explicit general appropriation for implementation staff.
- State and local licensing regulators — while the bill offers grants and models, jurisdictions will incur costs changing licensing rules, implementing equitable licensing, and coordinating record-sealing across systems.
- Prosecutors and corrections systems — the retroactive effect and automatic expungements will require revising records and may accelerate declines in incarceration-associated revenue streams, while transitional enforcement priorities change.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is reconciling restorative justice and economic inclusion with product safety and regulatory control: the bill eliminates criminal penalties and channels revenue into communities harmed by prohibition, but it simultaneously creates a complex federal tax and oversight regime that needs detailed rulemaking — forcing policymakers to trade immediate relief and market access against the risks and administrative costs of standing up a new national regulatory and enforcement architecture.
The bill packs several competing policy objectives into a single statute and leaves many implementation choices to agency rulemaking. Removing cannabis from the CSA is clear in intent, but the statute preserves FDA authority over drug products and delegates detailed product-safety, labeling, and THC-measurement mechanics to future HHS and Treasury action; that creates a potential regulatory gap where consumer products may be legal but lack finalized federal safety standards.
The tax design combines a short, percentage-based ramp with a later conversion to per-unit (ounce/gram) equivalents tied to market prices — administratively complex choices that will require robust price-index methodology, measurement standards for THC-measurable products, and anti-evasion controls.
Automatic expungement and court-directed resentencing are powerful restorative tools but carry operational burdens: courts nationwide must review decades of cases, appoint counsel for indigent resentencing applicants, and seal records while coordinating with federal and state record systems. The statute’s carveout excluding those who received an aggravating-role sentencing enhancement narrows relief and will invite litigation over eligibility.
Finally, the bill directs SBA and federal counseling systems to serve cannabis-related businesses, yet other federal regulatory landscapes (banking/AML, state banking regulators, insurers) will take time to align; access to capital in practice will depend on interagency coordination and private-sector risk appetite.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.