President Joe Biden just announced a federal pardon of all people convicted of federal charges for marijuana possession.
He also directed the Department of Justice to review the DEA’s classification system (called a “schedule”) for illegal drugs.
Marijuana is currently grouped in Schedule One, along with heroin and LSD. Schedule One is defined as drugs that have zero medicinal value.
Marijuana, LSD and even heroin all have medicinal value, but Biden and other Democrats are asking only that marijuana be removed from Schedule One and placed in a less-restrictive schedule so more medical research can be done using cannabis.
Biden also asked all states to similarly issue pardons for all people convicted of marijuana possession.
Marijuana convictions, even those for simple possession, cause massive negative impacts including interfering with getting jobs, college funding, top secret clearances, loans, and housing.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden promised to do what he just did, and it appears that Biden and the Democrats, if they retain the House and Senate in November 2022 elections, could decriminalize cannabis at the federal level.
“No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Biden said when announcing his executive actions. “It’s legal in many states, and criminal records for marijuana possession have led to needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities. And that’s before you address the racial disparities around who suffers the consequences. While white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people are arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionate rates. Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It’s time that we right these wrongs.”
This move indicates a big change in Biden’s thinking—for years he has been a drug warrior.
His past opposition to drug legalization was mostly personal. His son Hunter has publicly admitted to struggling with addiction to alcohol and other hard drugs. Biden’s daughter was arrested for marijuana possession more than 20 years ago.
While he was a Delaware senator, he headed the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Department of Justice, and pushed for tough criminal penalties for marijuana.
It was Biden who thought of the term “drug czar” and helped create the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), which was much hated by cannabis activists because it constantly lied about marijuana’s health and societal impacts.
ONDCP and bi-partisan support for the drug war led to ONDCP, DEA, and enforcement agencies spending billions of dollars per year persecuting marijuana “criminals.”
Biden’s hard line included insisting that ONDCP never do studies showing medical benefits of cannabis or any other positive data that could lead to legalization.
Joe also sponsored the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, which gave police the right to legally steal from marijuana arrestees using a process called civil asset forfeiture.
Police used marijuana arrests as a tool to seize expensive cars, jewelry, houses, land and other valuables, even from people later acquitted of their “crimes.”
Biden and then-President Bill Clinton created the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which became law in 1994. The bill caused a fast increase in the number of people imprisoned for minor drug offenses.
For those of us who love trance music, DMT, MDMA and glow sticks, Biden’s 2003 Reducing Americans’ Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act (RAVE Act) was a gut punch to the fun we were having dancing all night while tripping, smiling, getting laid, and acting goofy.
But now Biden has become the first president to pardon federal marijuana law victims and to formally push for removing cannabis from Schedule One.
If all 50 states honor his request to pardon state marijuana possession convictions, hundreds of thousands of people will see expungement of criminal history.
We note that neither Biden or most mainstream legalization advocates are pushing for true federal decriminalization, which would put marijuana into the same category as tomatoes and any other legal plants.
The capitalist-corporate-government cabal that controls America wants to limit personal marijuana growing and force people to buy schwag grown by corporate farms sold in licensed dispensaries and retail stores.
The war on black market marijuana growers and sellers not only continues, it has intensified as American states legalize cannabis.
That’s because state governments’ main reason for legalizing cannabis is so they can tax and otherwise profit from the cannabis industry.
Black market growers don’t play that game, so we’re still viewed as criminals worthy of arrest.
America is a troubled country. Half the voters hate Joe Biden and see him as a liberal commie socialist.
The other half hates Trump, seeing him as a traitorous, rapey, Putin-loving, greedy, egomaniacal, daughter-humping, fat liar.
Trump and the GOP have increasingly been spouting anti-marijuana rhetoric. Trump brags he has never used marijuana. GOP politicians and pundits still spew anti-marijuana reefer madness propaganda and want to reverse marijuana legalization.
When Trump was president, he hired marijuana-hating Kayleigh McEnany, a longtime political commentator and former Republican National Committee spokesperson, as his press secretary.
McEnany and other Trumpers still slag marijuana and marijuana users, and oppose marijuana legalization.
Fox “News” host Jimmy Failla said he opposes all marijuana decriminalization, claiming marijuana causes “filthy laziness.”
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he won’t even consider pardons for marijuana “crimes.” Texas has some of the most vicious marijuana laws in the country.
You easily see that even though the Republican Party claims to be the party of “small government” and freedom, they enthusiastically support the war on cannabis.
Despite the fact that polls show a majority of Republican voters support marijuana legalization, Republican governors and members of Congress oppose it.
In April, 2022, when the House passed legalization legislation, all but three Republicans voted AGAINST legalization. At the same time, all but two Democrats voted FOR legalization.
Republican politicians like Abbott also support telling women what to do with their own bodies, even mandating that raped 10-year-old girls be forced to birth rape babies!
So it’s no surprise that Abbott’s Texas leads the country in advocating gestation slavery for women and in jailing people for marijuana.
Biden is doing the right thing by erasing federal marijuana convictions and moving to take marijuana off Schedule One, but only if the Dems retain control of Congress can we be assured that his push for cannabis law reform will fully bloom!
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