A group representing Latino state legislators across the U.S. just endorsed legalizing marijuana and says current prohibition laws are part of a decades-long racist attack on their communities.

“Decriminalization of recreational marijuana will ease the burden off the criminal justice system and law enforcement agencies, allowing police officers, judges, and prosecutors to focus on violent offenses and other criminal activity more deserving of priority, and freeing-up space in prisons and decreasing the budgetary impact from keeping marijuana users incarcerated,” reads a resolution adopted on Wednesday by the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators (NHCSL). “Regulated marijuana retailing greatly hinders black-market drug dealers, prevents marijuana’s (unproven but widely alleged) use as a gateway drug, and directs much-needed revenue to legal business owners, states and local governments instead of organized crime.”

The resolution zeros in on the racist origins of marijuana prohibition.

“During the 1920’s and 1930’s, when it was first penalized in various states, cannabis use was portrayed as a cultural vice of Mexican immigrants to the United States, and racist and xenophobic politicians and government officials used cannabis prohibition specifically to target and criminalize Mexican-American culture and incarcerate Mexican-Americans and, therefore, the prohibition of cannabis is fundamentally rooted in discrimination against Hispanics,” it says.

While the NHCSL measure uses the words “cannabis” and “marijuana” interchangeably throughout, it does highlight the apparent negatively intended implications of the latter term by those who championed prohibition last century. “The racist politicians who first criminalized cannabis, used the term ‘marijuana’ (sometimes spelled ‘marihuana’) to refer to it, precisely because they wanted to underscore that it was a Latino, particularly Mexican ‘vice,’ and that word, with all its implications, has become the most common names for cannabis in the United States today,” it reads.

NHCSL is calling on the federal government to enact “legislation to federally decriminalize marijuana whether for medical or recreational uses” and is asking states to pass bills to “decriminalize marijuana, provide for the of sealing of records for drug convictions for underlying behavior that is legalized and enact responsible and appropriate policies, should a jurisdiction decide to regulate its sale as a legitimate article of commerce, to prevent youth access and curtail cartel and criminal activity.”

The measure also argues that cannabis prohibition is unconstitutional due to its discriminatory enforcement and origins.

“Marijuana policy in this country has disproportionately targeted Latinos from the start,” NHCSL President and Pennsylvania State Representative Ángel Cruz (D) said in a press release. Research shows that the benefits of legalizing cannabis range from taking advantage of its medicinal benefits, increasing tax revenues for health and education, to lowering crime while at the same time reducing disproportionate incarceration of minorities. NHCSL believes that our laws should focus on ending the current lawlessness of the black market and allow sound public policy based on scientific evidence to prevail on the issue of cannabis.”

Colorado State Representative Dan Pabón (D), the sponsor of the resolution, added, “In Colorado, we have successfully legalized cannabis and we have been able to reduce crime by 10.1%, increase revenues by more than $300 million that we dedicated to our schools, and have a new thriving industry that creates jobs… Smart decriminalization and tough regulations also allow our youth to thrive instead of subjecting many of them to unfair and discriminatory treatment by law enforcement. This is a civil rights issue and we urge our fellow lawmakers to view it as such and act accordingly.”

The adoption of NHCSL’s resolution comes just two days after a broader group, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), passed a measure calling on the federal government to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act.

“The Controlled Substances Act should be amended to remove cannabis from scheduling thus enabling financial institutions the ability to provide banking services to cannabis related businesses,” reads the NCSL resolution adopted on Monday.

Last week, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced a bill to deschedule cannabis and to encourage states to enact legalization laws.

The growing push for reform from federal and state lawmakers comes amid growing concern and uncertainty about the Trump administration’s position on state marijuana laws.

While Trump repeatedly pledged to respect state marijuana laws during the campaign, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a longtime vocal opponent of legalization.

Sessions received recommendations on marijuana enforcement policy and other criminal justice issues from a Justice Department late last month, but did not release them publicly. Last week, the Associated Press reported that the task force’s report, which it obtained, provided the attorney general with no ammunition to support a cannabis crackdown, instead suggesting that he continue to evaluate whether to keep in place an Obama-era memo that generally lets states set their own laws without federal interference.

In a related development, news also broke last week that Sesssions sent letters to the governors of a number of states with legalization, expressing concern with the implementation of those policies. And, federal agency representatives recently held secret meetings about marijuana policy with state and local officials in Colorado.

See below for the full National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators resolution: