Medical marijuana legislation gets support of key House Republican

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) has signed on to co-sponsor bipartisan legislation to simplify the medical marijuana research process. 

Goodlatte’s spokeswoman, Kathryn Rexrode, told Bloomberg that Goodlatte would co-sponsor the bill with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). 

{mosads}Gaetz on Tuesday was reportedly sending around a handout explaining his Medical Cannabis Research Act, which listed the Virginia Republican as a co-sponsor. 

A spokesman for the Florida congressman told Bloomberg that the bill was set to be introduced on Tuesday or Wednesday, and a news conference would be held by its sponsors. 

Two U.S. senators earlier this month called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to stop efforts by the by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to slow medical marijuana research.

“Research on marijuana is necessary for evidence-based decision making, and expanded research has been called for by President Trump’s Surgeon General, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the FDA, the CDC, the National Highway Safety Administration, the National Institute of Health, the National Cancer Institute, the National Academies of Sciences, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse,” Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) wrote in a letter. 

Sessions, who has been a strong critic of marijuana use, has questioned the medicinal benefits of the drug. 

Despite Sessions’s hard-line stance on marijuana, the DEA has signaled it is open to research into medicinal uses of the drug. 

The agency altered its policy roughly two years ago to allow for more suppliers because of the growing interest in researching more medical uses for the drug.