Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is seeking to blaze a path for marijuana reform in the Senate with legislation that would officially legalize state medical marijuana programs and whittle away at federal drug possession penalties.

On Wednesday, the likely 2016 presidential candidate introduced an amendment to explicitly allow state medical marijuana regimes. On Thursday, he proposed a stand-alone bill that would lower federal penalties for repeat marijuana possession offenses and reform how law enforcement calculates the weight of drugs in baked goods.

“It is Rand Paul laying down his marker on this issue,” a senior Paul aide says of the medical marijuana amendment. The underlying bill, the “Bring Jobs Home Act,” is unlikely to become law, but Paul wants to force colleagues to reveal their position on medical use of the drug.

National polls show overwhelming support for legal medical marijuana. CBS News gauged support at 86 percent in January and Fox News found 85 percent support in February 2013. Several national polls in 2014 have found majority support for outright marijuana legalization.

“There’s no way to make any progress on this issue until the Senate takes a vote and the American people can know where their senators are,” the Paul aide says. “That’s the reason to file amendments to every bill that comes up – there might be an opportunity to force a vote and put the Senate on record.”

In a surprising May 30 victory for marijuana reformers, the House of Representatives voted to block the Drug Enforcement Administration and federal prosecutors from going after medical marijuana in states that allow it. Paul and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., announced June 19 they are sponsoring a companion amendment in the Senate, which has not yet come up for a vote.

The newest Paul medical marijuana amendment would go a step further by explicitly allowing states to legalize and regulate medical marijuana “[n]otwithstanding section 708 of the Controlled Substances Act … or any other provision of law.”

Marijuana is currently an illegal Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act. Though the Justice Department generally tolerates medical marijuana in nearly two dozen states and recreational pot markets in two others, it’s still possible for patients, growers and middlemen to fall victim of DEA raids and prosecution by hard line U.S. attorneys.

Four family members and a family friend – jointly nicknamed “the Kettle Falls Five” – are currently facing federal charges after roughly complying with Washington state’s medical marijuana law.

Paul’s stand-alone drug reform bill filed Thursday, officially the Reclassification to Ensure Smarter and Equal Treatment (RESET) Act of 2014, would lower simple marijuana (and other drug) possession penalties for second- and multiple-time convictions from a maximum two years and three years, respectively, to one year in prison – eliminating the accompanying felony classification – and would lower maximum fines to $1,000.

The bill would also ban using the total weight of baked goods as the standard for prosecuting illicit edible makers. Earlier this year a Texas teenager who baked marijuana-laced brownies was slapped with felony charges that bring up to 99 years in prison. He's charged with possessing 1.5 pounds of the drug, but his attorney says about 7 grams went into the brownies.

"In determining the weight of a controlled substance or mixture of controlled substances that is in compound with a food product for purposes of this title or title III, the weight of the food product shall not be included," the proposed RESET Act says.

"This is the latest in a long line of sensible drug policy reform proposals from Sen. Paul," says Marijuana Majority Chairman Tom Angell. "Most political observers assume he's setting himself up to run for president and, if that's true, this is more evidence that it's quickly becoming the new conventional wisdom that working to end the failed war on drugs is smart politics."

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Paul has sponsored or co-sponsored several other bills that would soften harsh drug penalties. He's a long-standing supporter to rescinding mandatory minimum sentences and restoring voting rights to ex-felons. Earlier this month he co-introduced with Booker the REDEEM Act, which would allow adults a path to sealing nonviolent criminal records.

The senator intends to sponsor a more comprehensive bill that would reschedule marijuana, allowing doctors to write prescriptions in lieu of state-authorized doctor “recommendations,” the Paul aide says.