Federally Legal Weed: Do the Stars Align? Will Dems and GOP meet in the middle?

Cannabis stocks were positively buoyed by Thursday’s blockbuster news that the House of Representatives will vote next week on the MORE Act (Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement), which aims to remove cannabis from the list of federal laws to eliminate controlled substances; and to promote social justice in the industry.

Then, within hours, more news broke: The Senate unanimously approved a bipartisan bill promoting cannabis research. The latter hasn’t caught the shouts and murmurs, nor has cannabis stocks gone wild, but as one researcher put it, “Cannabis contains a galaxy of unexplored compounds…that could transform our understanding of plant medicine and human biology.” So, yes, the legalization of cannabis research was another big news.

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What About Cannabis Stocks?

Undoubtedly, cannabis legalization in the U.S. would be a major milestone for cannabis stocks, especially given the slow but sad decline over the past year, largely due to dashed hopes about progress, or lack thereof, in U.S. federal legalization.

RELATED: US Senate clears bipartisan marijuana research bill ahead of House vote on legalization

And while nothing’s official yet, the suggestion that cannabis legalization be discussed at the highest levels of government has encouraged investors and kept cannabis stocks responding positively.

What’s next?

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Pablo Zuanic said he expects MORE Act lead sponsor Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) to be in touch with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). which is expected to introduce its own legislation (the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act) on April 20th. CAOA is a broader reform law than the SAFE Act that would allow for interstate cannabis trade in the US.

RELATED: Federal law legalizing cannabis could vote in the House sooner rather than later

“Both bills, or a possible joint version, we believe will at least allow Democrats to claim they are doing their best to pass comprehensive cannabis reform. The conventional view is that none of the bills have the votes in the Senate to pass them (based on what we know at the moment, we agree with that view),” Zuanic said. “But as Rep. Perlmutter (sponsor of the SAFE Banking Act) recently told us, ‘the stars are aligned.'”

Can the Dems pull it off?

After drawing so much attention to their proposed reforms, can these leading Senate Democrats afford to miss out?

Zuanic says the SAFE Banking Act could be more than “face-saving” for Democrats.

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“SAFE PASSAGE could be an honorable start and provide a realistic spark for broader reforms to come. SAFE (in its current version) is said to have more than 60 votes in the Senate. It will all come down to Sen Majority Leader Schumer: Do nothing (regarding passing actual MJ legislation) this term or tweak Rep Perlmutter’s bill.

The challenge is clearly getting any of these bills through the Senate.

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It might do some good for potential naysayers in the Senate to give serious, impartial thought to the situation, as it would make sense to acknowledge that a large majority — a whopping 68% — of their own constituents do indeed want cannabis legalization, regulation, and fair taxation .

“Today, voters of all ages and in virtually every region of the country agree that marijuana should be legal,” said former NORML executive director Erik Altieri. “We have a mandate from the American people and we intend to ensure that elected officials uphold it.”

This article originally appeared on Benzinga and has been republished with permission.