The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple-effects across the country.
This isn’t a new position for Biden with regards to his presidency. Here’s his statements on it over 4 years ago in Feb 2020:
Biden’s campaign told POLITICO that in his remarks on the recording, he was simply “restating his cannabis policy,” which includes eliminating criminal penalties linked to marijuana, erasing marijuana-related criminal records and “letting states set their own policies regarding legalization of recreational marijuana while further effort is made to study the effects of cannabis use.”
If he wanted to do that he’d have pushed his AG to deschedule it entirely
The attorney general doesn’t set the drug classification level, that’s the DEA. This is power was established by a law passed by congress, so if Biden had his AG try to overrule that some states would sue and the Supreme Court would clearly side with them. He could have his AG refuse to prosecute any cannabis crimes, but that would immediately be undone the next time a conservative AG takes over and prosecutes everyone who got a pass now. Also, they’ve already been ignoring any cannabis prosecutions where it’s someone following state law.
Apart from congress passing a law legalizing cannabis (which is not possible with the republican house, not to mention most of the senate) having the DEA reschedule it is the only “permanent” path forward. And it has to be done to the letter of the law because you know some republican states will challenge this move.
This isn’t a new position for Biden with regards to his presidency. Here’s his statements on it over 4 years ago in Feb 2020:
Biden’s campaign told POLITICO that in his remarks on the recording, he was simply “restating his cannabis policy,” which includes eliminating criminal penalties linked to marijuana, erasing marijuana-related criminal records and “letting states set their own policies regarding legalization of recreational marijuana while further effort is made to study the effects of cannabis use.”
source
If he wanted to do that he’d have pushed his AG to deschedule it entirely, so this really just documents another thing Biden lied about to get elected
e; added a link
The attorney general doesn’t set the drug classification level, that’s the DEA. This is power was established by a law passed by congress, so if Biden had his AG try to overrule that some states would sue and the Supreme Court would clearly side with them. He could have his AG refuse to prosecute any cannabis crimes, but that would immediately be undone the next time a conservative AG takes over and prosecutes everyone who got a pass now. Also, they’ve already been ignoring any cannabis prosecutions where it’s someone following state law.
Apart from congress passing a law legalizing cannabis (which is not possible with the republican house, not to mention most of the senate) having the DEA reschedule it is the only “permanent” path forward. And it has to be done to the letter of the law because you know some republican states will challenge this move.