Legalization of Marijuana

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I doubt he will, but I'd really like to see Biden make a push for legalization on the federal level.

This is something I want anyway because the war on drugs is asinine, but I want him to put this on Republicans who I doubt will support federal legalization. I think there are probably a handful of Democrats in Congress who want it to remain illegal, but I wager the majority of Republicans want it to and their opposition to federal legalization shows their small government values only apply to matters of interest.

It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned, because in the unlikely event that I've got the mother****ers all wrong and they actually go out for legalization, well, we get federal legalization and the energy that has gone into purging pot potentially gets diverted to something worthwhile and the states that wish to continue to prohibit it can.
 
With the right-wing reckoning over "big pharma" profit motives re: COVID-19 vaccines, I wonder if we might be on a trajectory toward major reform of I don't know why I'm even considering such a thing when this is all about grievance rather than reason.
 
TexRex
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Is it Manchin? It's Manchin right?
 
I figure it's a good bet that Biden was shown Reefer Madness in school and that it still informs his views on marijuana, but I'd still really like to see a bunch of Democratic lawmakers band together on the issue of legalization and maybe he can be willed over. They should probably back away from taxation, which strikes me much more as a way of making the prospect more palatable, and they'd likely end up getting more support from libertarians, leaving primarily Republicans in the opposition and better illustrating their limited government hypocrisy.

...
reason.com

50 Years After Nixon's Commission Said Cops Should Stop Busting Pot Users, the Federal Ban Remains Unchanged

But 37 states allow medical or recreational use, and arrests are falling.
reason.com reason.com
 
TexRex
What a ****ing candy-ass reason to oppose legalization.
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Gym Jim Jordan: "Hold my beer."



Republican is when bitchfit.

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What's the rationale (not the word I'm looking for but it'll have to do) here? Our energies should be focused elsewhere? I mean...****ing yes, end the idiotic ****ing "war on drugs" and focus energies elsewhere!
 
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So...Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) voted against the MORE Act. Pappas says he supports federal decriminalization and expungement but he doesn't think violent felons, organized crime leadership or anyone convicted of trafficking fentanyl should have offenses related to marijuana as laid out by the Act expunged from their records or that they should be released from prison.

I don't get it. I mean, I sort of get not wanting these people to be free--even if I think it's wrong for a punishment to exceed that which is appropriate for a given crime--but the Act doesn't include a provision for expungement of offenses unrelated to marijuana, and these people tend to have perpetrated other offenses. If what's keeping them in prison is their conviction on offenses related to marijuana, the Act should absolutely apply to them. If prosecutors couldn't get them on offenses of which they were suspected, they shouldn't be incarcerated on obsolete marijuana convictions in lieu of convictions on which prosecutors would have liked them to be incarcerated.

A Democrat from Texas, Rep. Henry Cuellar, also voted against the MORE Act. Cuellar is conservative and the 'no' vote doesn't come as a surprise.

Additionally, just three Republicans voted to pass the bill.

Some Republicans say they're in favor of decriminalization but they oppose the "social justice" reforms laid out in the Act, namely expungement and release from prison. This is wrong. If a prohibition is deemed obsolete, it shouldn't continue to weigh over anyone.

I gather the pathway to legalization is a sticking point for Republicans broadly.

Regardless of their position on the bill, every single one of those Republicans who voted against the bill isn't for small government as Republicans purport to be. Enforcement of prohibitions on the state level isn't enough. They want federal enforcement for their preferred prohibitions.

Anyway, we've been here before with a marijuana bill passed in the House and on its way to the Senate. It's died in the Senate before and it's likely to die in the Senate again. Senate Republicans want federal enforcement for their preferred prohibitions.
 
Trump’s defense is now shifting to saying he thought the documents he took were actually rolling papers and “Top Secret” was just a brand he hadn’t heard of.
 
Northstar
Trump’s defense is now shifting to saying he thought the documents he took were actually rolling papers and “Top Secret” was just a brand he hadn’t heard of.
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Sounds more like he was using the rolled papers as a nasal straw.
 
TheCracker
Got to make some space in those prisons for Trump and his administration.
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I imagine the tubby Trump will take up a lot of space on his own but that it's the Jan 6th insurrectionists that should make up the most sizeable contingent of the incarcerated. America and the world needs to be shown that trying to overthrow a legitimately elected government isn't something to show off about or be celebrated.
 
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TheCracker
Got to make some space in those prisons for Trump and his administration.
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So I gather this wasn't wholly serious, but it's worth noting that nobody is likely to be incarcerated as a result of a federal conviction of marijuana possession. Incarceration as a punishment for a federal possession offense has been withheld for long enough that anyone affected by this has since served their sentence fully and been released. It's effectively an expungement so that those previously found guilty of a federal possession offense, whether they were incarcerated or not, no longer have that hanging over their head.

This action isn't as sweeping as I'd like it to be.

First, it's limited by Biden's authority; the president can only pardon those convicted federally and by the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colombia (Washington D.C., due to its lacking statehood and therefore lacking a governorship).

Second, it applies only to possession convictions, absent charges of intent to distribute or violent crime, and only of those residing in the country legally. Given the scope, this basically means those arrested for mere possession on federal property and in national parks, and in the District of Colombia.

Of course the limited scope hasn't kept Republicans from lying about what Biden has done.

Biden doesn't have the authority to outright legalize, even applicable only federally and within the District of Colombia. This action is purely an exercise of legitimate executive powers. I'm not convinced Biden has even the appetite for outright legalization, though it would require an Act of Congress. As I've said before, I'd really like to see Biden push for it in the capacity that he can.

I'm curious to see what, if anything, comes of drug scheduling review under the Controlled Substances Act (also within the executive's purview) as that has the potential to do much more good and get us closer to effective legalization.
 
Im curious in the US which products / business have been negatively impacted by the opening of dispensaries and the availability of weed. The reason for the curiosity is it might point to who / what are the vested interests that are maintaining the current illegality here in the UK. Over here there have been conservative politicians lobbying for reclassifying weed to class A same as Heroin! citing the ususal bollocks of it being a gateway drug. Thankfully the request was rebuffed on reclassification, but it just goes to show the establishment don't want legalisation perhaps because it will negatively affect a big business interest (perhaps pharmaceutical?).
 
If I recall right, hemp and weed were originally banned in the HS because it would have severely threatened an adjacent industry. I can see vape companies and tobacco being behind the push to a class A reclassification.
 
As I understand William Randolph Hearst owned several wood pulp paper mills which would've been negatively affected by the superior quality of hemp paper and recruited FBI agent Harry Anslinger to help him demonise marijuana to prevent this from happening.

The only things to which dope was a gateway drug for me were alcohol and tobacco. They did me more damage than it ever did.
 
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TexRex
Of course the limited scope hasn't kept Republicans from lying about what Biden has done.
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reason.com

Tom Cotton says Biden's marijuana pardon recipients pleaded down from more serious charges

In fact, most were caught on federal property with small amounts of pot.
reason.com reason.com
Language warning for the article proper as it features a tweet containing a four-letter expletive that occasionally refers to fecal matter.

TL;DR - Possession is a minor crime. Possession offenses affected by the Biden action would never have been more than a misdemeanor and U.S. Attorneys don't waste their time to plea down to misdemeanor possession.
 
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