When President Joe Biden unveiled his surprise bundle of marijuana reforms Thursday, it rocked the world of experts who specialize in drug policy.
I am for it! We’ve seen the rollout in many states. Decriminalization and legalization harms society far less than prohibition. We can’t afford to wage the drug war and lock people up in perpetuity any better than we can afford forever wars like Afghanistan. Cost to human capital included.
This is the start not the end. Brilliant!
Ironically, during Prohibition you could get a note from your doctor allowing you to purchase a couple of pints of whiskey per month for “medicinal use”-- arguably there are medicinal uses for booze, but in 1928 how many ever really used it medicinally.
Biden is making great progress, but we need to keep pressing for de-scheduling. I would also like to see a Hyde-amendment like strategy towards funding of state prisons that hold marijuana offenders (or people guilty of simple possession of anything, but that’s a different story). This is a moral issue, it is wrong to jail marijuana users and not a dime of federal money should go to a state prison system that engages in the practice.
It would only remove the federal penalties. State criminal laws would not be affected by descheduling.
These damn liberals! They want everybody to be super relaxed while reading books that say “gay” and not carrying guns. What’s the world coming to?!?
Was that really President Biden in the speech, or did Jack Black hijack the news feed using his Biden Deep-fake?
Yes, but would it make the state laws subject to the federal interstate commerce clause attack with no broader federal cover when so many legal states will push inter-state transportation? I imagine, though, while the feds may ‘decriminalize’ marijuana, it will still be subject to banned substances testing nationally across industries, like alcohol.
True, but it would still help vendors in states like mine here WA where it’s already legalized, because credit card companies won’t give vendors an account due to the national Schedule 1 status. As a cash-only business this makes them a prime target for armed robbery. That has become a big problem in some areas. Credit card sales would help reduce that risk.
But it probably would put downward pressure on states to start to move in a new direction. Obviously, as stated in the article, the red governors would resist, but as more and more blue and purple states followed suit, it would be increasingly untenable to remain intransigent. In my opinion.
It certainly doesn’t hurt to decriminalize at the federal level. But there were still some dry states for a long while after the end of Prohibition. And not all of us are lucky enough to live in states where the voters can’t just pass it directly by ballot initiative.
“Far fuckin’ out man. I grok. Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh {wheeze, cough}”
I’ll have to celebrate with an edible tonight.
This isn’t really a thing. There would be a very good argument that states continuing to criminalize cannabis can’t interfere with legal-state-to-legal-state shipments. But that’s not otherwise going to prevent Texas from continuing to make sale and possession illegal in Texas.
This is a unifying, savvy, younger-voter-friendly, pre-midterm move. Overwhelmingly most Americans support some marijuana legalization (90+% including medical-use-only supporters), and the support skews both young and Democratic, with older voters not nearly as strongly supportive. So it could be motivating to key parts of our base, with young marijuana users being likely among the most liberal, lowest propensity voters. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/16/americans-overwhelmingly-say-marijuana-should-be-legal-for-recreational-or-medical-use/.
It is also obviously a good rational policy direction, a sane humanitarian one, and an effectively anti-racist one, aligned with the many states that have been steadily going this way for some time. Meanwhile, the federal level policies limit the ability for marijuana as a legitimate business sector to operate fully, e.g., banking’s prohibition has been a problem, with retail pot businesses forced to operate using cash, with the added physical security problems that presents.
Side note, too, I often wonder how much Biden’s personal family story weighs into this stuff. Beau was a terminal brain cancer patient (d. 2015), and Hunter has struggled with substance use (surely in part stemming from the huge trauma the family had when both were very little). Biden also has young adult grandkids. Not only is the move wise from a political and policy perspective, but I could imagine he might have some personal angles of awareness as well.
What will this do as far as the banking industry, to be able to move it beyond a cash only business?
“I got that reference.” Valentine Michael Smith
The drug laws, especially the laws concerning marijuana, have mostly been used to incarcerate black men for long sentences. I imagine Republican leaders will consider Biden’s plan an attack on their anti-black man (law and order) agenda.
That said I doubt this will pass Congress if the Republicans take control of either the house or senate in 2022.
Never forget Reefer Madness is and has always been a bullshit excuse to incarcerate young and mostly black people and to drive poor people to alcohol consumption.
I recommend a couple of Xanax.
As others have noted, descheduling would most likely make credit card payments and banking much easier for cannabis companies. I imagine it would open up internet sales and shipping as well. But the details all remain to be seen, and it’s at least as likely that they’ll just move cannabis down to somewhere like Schedule III instead. The impact of that would be very much up in the air.
