Joe Biden Boosts Effort to Decriminalize Marijuana

Since the time marijuana was first criminalized - largely with financial and political backing by DuPont which sought to replace hemp rope with its synthetic materials -  the marijuana laws have been used to disproportionately target minorities and been justified by many lies, including the lie that it is a "gateway drug."  The very name "marijuana" symbolized anti-Hispanic prejudice and bigotry.   Currently, 37 states allow marijuana for medical use, and 19 states, including Virginia (after years of Republican opposition), allow recreational use - 5 more states have initiatives on the ballot this November to allow recreational use. Yet the federal law has continued to treat marijuana as a "Schedule 1 drug with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse” despite medical evidence to the contrary, especially in terms of pain management.  As for being a "gateway drug," in my view, this has never been true.  If one has moved on to other drugs it is due to emotional and psychological issues that cause one to want to escape their current reality, something the ridiculous "Just Say No" campaign never admitted and never sought to address.   Now, Joe Biden has taken the step of pardoning those with federal convictions for possession of marijuana.  Hopefully, this is a first step in repealing ridiculous laws that have been ruining lives and disproportionately criminalizing minorities for decades.  Not surprisingly, many critics of Biden's move are Republicans who seek to continue to use the marijuana laws to criminalize minorities and, when possible, deprive them of voting rights (e.g. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a truely heinous individual).  Two columns in the Washington Post look at this welcomed development.  Here are highlights from the first:

President Biden’s announcement of mass pardons for those convicted of federal marijuana possession charges comes just weeks before midterm elections that will determine control of Congress. It is not hard to detect the political calculation behind a decision likely to appeal to — and motivate — the young voters who could be key to Democrats winning. Yet it was also the right thing to do. Simple marijuana possession does not pose a serious threat to public safety, and users should not be hauled into the criminal justice system.

“Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives … for conduct that many states no longer prohibit,” Mr. Biden tweeted Thursday. “That’s before you address the clear racial disparities around prosecution and conviction. Today, we start to right these wrongs.” In addition to his pardons of thousands of people with federal misdemeanor convictions for simple possession (not sale or distribution) of marijuana, Mr. Biden ordered a review of whether marijuana should continue to be classified as a Schedule I substance, the same category as heroin and LSD.

The impact will be more limited than the sweeping rhetoric suggests, because state, not federal, prosecutors bring the vast majority of simple possession cases, and Mr. Biden can pardon only those convicted of federal offenses. White House officials said 6,500 people convicted between 1992 and 2021, plus thousands more D.C. residents whom federal law covers, will be impacted.

[T]he president’s action will allow offenders’ records to be cleared, removing barriers to them getting jobs, finding housing or applying to college.

The largest effects might come as state officials follow Mr. Biden’s lead, as he urged governors to do. Early reactions to the president’s plea ran the gamut. Some states pointed to actions they have already taken to pardon or erase lesser marijuana convictions; some said they are taking formal steps to review the president’s request; some said they won’t take similar actions, either because they lack authority in their states or because they disagree with the president’s approach. Predictably, there were also those who saw opportunity to score their own political points.

Opinion polls show that majorities of Americans favor releasing people imprisoned solely on marijuana-related charges and legalizing marijuana for medical and recreational use. . . . Marijuana use is a public health challenge that the criminal justice system cannot solve — and should not be asked to. We hope Mr. Biden’s move advances the shift away from criminalization.

Here are excerpts from the second column:

Biden, once the squarest of Democrats, has done what no previous president has done on the issue: He has offered mass pardons for those convicted of possessing marijuana.

Why was the most significant presidential step toward ending marijuana prohibition taken by Biden and not, say, the considerably less square Barack Obama or Bill Clinton? Because this president’s ideological flexibility has intersected with the force of party politics and public opinion to finally move toward something that should have happened long ago.

[T]he absurdity of marijuana being classified as Schedule I, which means it has “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Other drugs in that category include heroin and LSD, while cocaine and methamphetamine are classified in the less restrictive Schedule II, showing how divorced from reality the scheduling system is.

Biden appears sincere on the question of how to approach those with possession convictions. He surely believes it’s unacceptable that thousands of Americans have a criminal record — which makes it harder to access education, employment and housing — because they were arrested for something that is now legal to one degree or another in most of the country.

And as Biden noted in his video message announcing the new policy, though members of all racial groups use marijuana at about the same rates, members of minority groups are far more likely to be arrested for possession than others.

With midterm elections looming, Biden might have finally succumbed to the force of public opinion: Over the past 20 years, support for legalizing cannabis has doubled, an extraordinary evolution in public sentiment, and today, more than two-thirds of Americans favor legalization. More than 8 in 10 members of Biden’s party support legalization.

There’s another irony here. Public opinion on marijuana has changed in part because people around Biden’s age, who are most likely to support prohibition, have been dying off, to be replaced by younger people for whom it makes no more sense than alcohol prohibition did. According to the Pew Research Center, those over 75 make up the only age group in which a majority doesn’t support legalization.