The House is debating marijuana decriminalization as I type. This morning, the Judiciary Committee did a major turnabout and adopted amendments that essentially restore the bill to the form passed by the Senate and sponsored by Sen. Zirkin.

Sufficient pressure was applied on Committee Chair Joe Vallario to allow this to occur by leadership and committee members. Restoring the bill will also avoid any awkward votes for committee members who can now vote to support decriminalization without also voting to roll their chairman. The minor changes to the Senate bill provide a fig leaf of cover for Vallario.

These changes pave the way for marijuana decriminalization to pass the House today with sufficiently few differences to the Senate bill that they can likely concur.

You can listen online to the House debate this right now.

UPDATE: Now, the House has delayed the debate until later today.