President Joe Biden has been a conspicuous outlier among Democrats when it comes to supporting marijuana legalization. But Schumer said Biden’s reticence won’t deter the Senate from taking aggressive action to loosen federal restrictions.

“I want to make my arguments to him, as many other advocates will,” Schumer said in an interview with POLITICO this week. “But at some point we’re going to move forward, period.“

Schumer pointed to the decade-long experiment with state legalization as evidence that the worst fears of what would happen were overblown. “The legalization of states worked out remarkably well,“ he said. “They were a great success. The parade of horribles never came about, and people got more freedom.“

Schumer was so enthusiastic to get to the cannabis policy discussion that he started sharing his thoughts before a question was posed. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.