
As members of Congress burned the midnight oil to pass a $1.3 trillion budget bill by their March 23 deadline, they attached a recurring "rider" that bans the U.S. Department of Justice from using funds to interfere with medical marijuana in states that have legalized it.
U.S. President Donald Trump went on to sign that $1.3 trillion spending measure, which protects medical marijuana businesses through at least Sept. 30. And this time he didn't include a signing statement reserving his right to ignore that rider, which he did last May.
In other words, we just got another "green light" from Washington.
Now, this isn't exactly a slam dunk for the industry: Some lawmakers wanted to extend these protections to cover recreational marijuana as well, but the U.S. House Rules Committee blocked that effort along a party-line vote on March 21.