From the article: This is in addition to the previous October, 2022 pardon for simple possession of marijuana. I'm not thrilled with this trickle of justice, or the pace of the evaluation and...
From the article:
President Joe Biden pardoned thousands of Americans convicted of using or possessing marijuana on certain federal lands and commuted the sentences of nearly a dozen non-violent drug offenders, echoing a move he made last year that highlighted his justice reform agenda.
The move applies to various federal lands including national parks, wildlife refuges and even the CIA. It covers only US citizens and does not include charges associated with distributing marijuana or driving while using it. For possession, first-time offenders typically serve a year in jail and receive a fine of $1,000.
The president also shortened the sentences of 11 Americans serving decades-long or life sentences for non-violent drug offenses. Those individuals would otherwise serve less time had they been charged more recently due to sentencing reforms.
An official said some people with crack cocaine convictions will have their sentences commuted, noting that powder cocaine offenses tend to receive shorter punishments. The sentencing disparity has disproportionately affected Black Americans, the official noted.
“Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It’s time that we right these wrongs,” the president said in a statement. “Just as no one should be in a federal prison solely due to the use or possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either.”
This is in addition to the previous October, 2022 pardon for simple possession of marijuana.
I'm not thrilled with this trickle of justice, or the pace of the evaluation and reclassification of cannabis from Controlled Substances Act Schedule I (no legitimate medical uses, high abuse potential) to Schedule III (medical uses, low-to-moderate abuse potential). Nonetheless, it's an improvement.
since the details of the differences between the two pardons seem to be pretty vague / poorly explained in news articles, here's the two proclamations side by side: October 2022 and December 2023...
This is in addition to the previous October, 2022 pardon for simple possession of marijuana.
since the details of the differences between the two pardons seem to be pretty vague / poorly explained in news articles, here's the two proclamations side by side:
as far as I can tell, the only difference is that the original covered "simple possession of marijuana" while the newer one also covers "attempted simple possession of marijuana" and "use of marijuana".
from Biden's 2020 campaign website, emphasis added: this campaign pledge seems to only exist, as far as I can find, on his "Biden's plan for Black America" page. he's been in office for almost 3...
Biden will work with Congress to reform federal sentencing and provide incentives to state and local systems to do the same. He will end, once and for all, the federal crack and powder cocaine disparity, decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions, and end all incarceration for drug use alone and instead divert individuals to drug courts and treatment. He will work to eliminate mandatory minimums and the death penalty.
this campaign pledge seems to only exist, as far as I can find, on his "Biden's plan for Black America" page.
he's been in office for almost 3 years now, and we've gotten two tiny steps towards something he promised in 2020.
his October 2022 announcement directed HHS "to initiate the administrative process to review expeditiously how marijuana is scheduled under federal law".
Bloomberg reported that it had obtained a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recommending that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) reclassify cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III. The report includes confirmation from a DEA spokesperson that the letter with the recommendation was received, but as of the writing of this article, the letter has not been made public.
...
While it remains to be seen whether HHS's recommendation will ultimately be adopted by the DEA — which has final authority to schedule or reschedule a drug under the CSA — it is useful to review what moving cannabis to Schedule III would possibly look like for the industry.
what's stopping Biden from going further? what's stopping him from fulfilling his campaign promises?
it took a year and a half from his inauguration to his first announcement in October 2022. then another 10 months for HHS to "consider" it. then they made a recommendation to the DEA, who we assume is also "considering" it. maybe they're trying to do some galaxy-brain political shit and saving up the announcement for closer to the 2024 election?
the downside would be, if the DEA under Biden rescheduled cannabis purely through executive action, not an act of Congress, then a future Republican president, Trump or whoever else, would be able to move it back to Schedule I.
and...so what? wouldn't that be good? how many times have you heard someone disaffected with politics talk about how both parties are the same and so why bother voting? could there possibility be a better counterexample to that then "a Democratic president tried to decriminalize cannabis, and then a Republican president rolled it back"?
5 years in federal prison for selling marijuana. Biden could pardon him, either as a one-off, or as part of one of these two big announcements he's made. he chose not to. instead he's chosen both times to use this smokescreen of "people charged federally with simple possession" which is not zero people, but is such a small number that it rounds down to zero.
On further consideration, I'm going to take issue with one thing: That would not be good. Heightening the contradictions might be fine revolutionary strategy, but we're talking about actual...
Exemplary
On further consideration, I'm going to take issue with one thing:
the downside would be, if the DEA under Biden rescheduled cannabis purely through executive action, not an act of Congress, then a future Republican president, Trump or whoever else, would be able to move it back to Schedule I.
and...so what? wouldn't that be good? how many times have you heard someone disaffected with politics talk about how both parties are the same and so why bother voting? could there possibility be a better counterexample to that then "a Democratic president tried to decriminalize cannabis, and then a Republican president rolled it back"?
That would not be good. Heightening the contradictions might be fine revolutionary strategy, but we're talking about actual Fascists winning. As much as I might despise the Biden administration's fecklessness on any number of issues, I'm not conceding an inch to the Republican Party as it's currently constituted. We can push the Democrats in a progressive direction peacefully, but the Republicans will silence, imprison, maim or kill us, forever if they get the chance.
And I'll keep banging on that message for the rest of the coming year, because it's meaningful for everything I care about - human rights, climate change and pollution, wage inequity, access to basic food, shelter, and medicine, freedom of thought and religion, global peace and an end to nuclear weapons...
Ending rant here, and my apologies for soapboxing.
I really don't understand this as a response to the quote you provided. They aren't suggesting we should let a republican win just so they can roll back decriminalization or a schedule change to...
I really don't understand this as a response to the quote you provided. They aren't suggesting we should let a republican win just so they can roll back decriminalization or a schedule change to highlight the differences.
Making those initial moves would be positive regardless, and when another republican gets elected at some point they would have tougher optics trying to roll it back. When the alternative is "not trying to decriminalize cannabis" and "Republicans not having to highlight any differences at all to keep it illegal if they win", I don't see how there's anything to take issue with?
I totally understand the rant, but it seems to be more of a general response to any criticism of Biden than addressing any actual points that were made. As if we're afraid to criticize him at all lest we encourage "both-sideism" that discourages us from fighting Republicans as strongly. That's a real pragmatic concern in media and public discourse, but I think this is pretty safe space for us to be able to freely criticize Biden without letting go of the fact that the vast-majority of us will go vote blue regardless.
Yes there is complexity and nuance to how much power the president truly has to make these changes, but there absolutely is truth that at the very least pardons like this could have been done sooner and that his administration has failed to even attempt some campaign promises, let alone be able to follow through on many. We can acknowledge that and apply internal pressure while still recognizing what is at stake and planning to vote blue.
My issue was specifically with the "so what? wouldn't that be good?" rhetorical questions. I'm not sure how you interpreted what I wrote as an apologia for the Biden administration's inadequacies,...
My issue was specifically with the "so what? wouldn't that be good?" rhetorical questions.
I'm not sure how you interpreted what I wrote as an apologia for the Biden administration's inadequacies, or fear of both-sidesism. But if it wasn't clear enough, I agree with @spit-evil-olive-tips that the President Biden could make cannabis decriminalization a higher priority, that the DEA has provided at least part of the requested evidence for the Attorney General to reschedule the drug, and that there are purely political reasons why it hasn't been done yet.
It's totally within Biden's power to grant Federal pardons, and that's not happening quickly enough - again, politics. I don't have evidence, but it would make sense to keep up a slow dribble of pardons and maintain the appearance of something being done.
Cannabis rescheduling doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the failures that the Biden administration should take blame for, like failing to back striking railway workers adequately, increasing fossil fuel production, shipping further weapons to Israel... It feels like Biden is trying to appease the pro-business, pro-Israel, and pro-law enforcement wings of the Republican Party/conservative Democrats, while simultaneously pitching himself as pro-worker, pro-woman, pro-environment, and it stinks to high heaven. We knew Biden was the least good of the available Democratic Party options, and we voted for him in the general election because he's not unthinkably evil. In spite of that decidedly mixed record, I'm asking for another vote against evil, if not in favor of Biden.
That's exactly why he should legalize it. Marijuana legalization is incredibly popular, with 88% supporting it for medical use and 59% supporting it for recreational use as well. It's popular...
That's exactly why he should legalize it. Marijuana legalization is incredibly popular, with 88% supporting it for medical use and 59% supporting it for recreational use as well. It's popular enough, and there's enough money in the industry now, that I'm not even sure Republicans would attack Biden for it, instead preferring to attack him on other matters. This could be an easy win for Biden that would also do some real good, but he still doesn't do it. The stakes are high, and it's frustrating seeing the Democrats fumble like this.
Please refer to this. Biden does not have the power to do what you want, even though his campaign implied that he did, as @spit-evil-olive-tips mentioned. I will say that even if the DEA...
Please refer to this. Biden does not have the power to do what you want, even though his campaign implied that he did, as @spit-evil-olive-tips mentioned.
I will say that even if the DEA reschedules cannabis to Schedule III*, that's not legalization for recreational purposes. Schedule III drugs are still controlled and require prescriptions. But it would take an act of Congress to remove marijuana from CSA restrictions.
*It's frankly baffling to me that any responsible medical authority could find that cannabis has higher potential for abuse and dependency than Xanax or Valium (Schedule IV), or even low-dose codeine (Schedule V), but what do I know.
The requested HHS review was completed, as seen in spit-evil-olive-tips' initial post; The path to rescheduling seems open by your reading. I forgot to specify in my initial post that even just...
The requested HHS review was completed, as seen in spit-evil-olive-tips' initial post; The path to rescheduling seems open by your reading. I forgot to specify in my initial post that even just the rescheduling, or legalization for medical purposes to my understanding, would do some real good still.
But it would've been nice if he'd at least tried for full legalization while the Democrats held the Senate, even if it would've faced steep resistance to passing. It would've been nice he started the HHS review before October 2022, where IIRC polls predicted Democrats would likely lose control of Congress, and so there was no chance of the review being completed at a time when people might've expected them to do something about it.
You're absolutely correct, and I find it suspicious that the DEA memo hasn't been made part of the public record. It wouldn't surprise me if the announcement will be part of a little bundle of...
You're absolutely correct, and I find it suspicious that the DEA memo hasn't been made part of the public record. It wouldn't surprise me if the announcement will be part of a little bundle of October surprises being prepared to amp up the interested voters on the eve of the Presidential election.
And full disclosure - I am a medical marijuana user under Michigan law. It galls me that had to sneak illegal drugs in to my mother while she suffered through chemotherapy, and that I can't legally travel between states with a necessary medication. I've got friends with permanent criminal records for using or growing their own pharmaceuticals. There are millions of Americans (and probably some involved in the international illegal trade) for whom cannabis legalization would be a significant relief.
As /u/spit-evil-olive-tips wrote, there's no telling what galaxy-brained political gamesmanship is going on with Biden, his advisors, and the Democratic Party leadership. I'll generously concede that cannabis might not be even the 100th highest item on their agenda, but if they can't be trusted to get the easy wins, it will take excess effort to convince voters they're devoted to the difficult ones.
The republicans want legal weed to use themselves, but they want the people in jail for it to stay there. Mostly because they perceive them as being predominantly black, latin, or left, coupled...
The republicans want legal weed to use themselves, but they want the people in jail for it to stay there. Mostly because they perceive them as being predominantly black, latin, or left, coupled with the general othering of convicts, regardless of crime.
It all comes back to the usual fascist mentality that laws exist to hurt an out group and should not be applied to an in group.
I suspect that their most desirable scenario is weed being in an unenforced superposition of legality in red states, but federally illegal so a Republican-led DEA can operate against minorities in blue states, regardless of their own laws. (Nothing's changed since the Civil War: unlimited "states' rights" for slave states, Fugitive Slave Acts binding free states.)
You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities,” Ehrlichman said.
The War on Drugs was always about controlling dissidents, not protecting communities.
That's part of why it persists. The earlier private prisons were a loophole to keep slavery alive in the late 19th century. Bad, but not terribly widespread. The War on Drugs started in 1971, but...
That's part of why it persists. The earlier private prisons were a loophole to keep slavery alive in the late 19th century. Bad, but not terribly widespread.
The War on Drugs started in 1971, but the modern incarnation of private prisons didn't really start until the 1980's under Reagan (no surprises there).
right, I forgot the importance of never writing anything on Tildes that can be interpreted two different ways. I wasn't saying Trump winning would be good overall. because obviously it would be...
That would not be good.
right, I forgot the importance of never writing anything on Tildes that can be interpreted two different ways.
I wasn't saying Trump winning would be good overall. because obviously it would be terrible.
I was just saying that if Biden succeeded in rescheduling cannabis, and then if Trump won in 2024, even in that worst-case scenario there's a small silver lining in terms of providing such a clear example of how Democrats and Republicans aren't the same. (and in particular, an example that would resonate well with your stereotypical disaffected voter)
I apologize - this wasn't intended as a personal attack, and it's on me for not inquiring further as to your intended meaning. I'll work on my kneejerk response to the faintest whiff of...
I apologize - this wasn't intended as a personal attack, and it's on me for not inquiring further as to your intended meaning. I'll work on my kneejerk response to the faintest whiff of accelerationist argument.
I'm not familiar with how the DEA works, could you help catch me up? My understanding is that it's part of the executive branch, so I would think that the president telling them to reschedule...
I'm not familiar with how the DEA works, could you help catch me up?
My understanding is that it's part of the executive branch, so I would think that the president telling them to reschedule something through either executive order or just informal pressure of "do it or you're fired" wouldn't be an expansion of executive power.
So why would a president doing so be bad (in that it sets a precedent for the next president to misuse some new power)? What role would Congress play if that was the route taken instead? It doesn't seem like Congress could pass a law to reschedule a drug. Could they pass a law forbidding enforcement of scheduling rules against marijuana?
I'm not an administrative law expert or even any kind of lawyer, and my paralegal days are far behind me. So I'm not prepared to say how much the DEA can do under an executive order. The DEA was...
I'm not an administrative law expert or even any kind of lawyer, and my paralegal days are far behind me. So I'm not prepared to say how much the DEA can do under an executive order. The DEA was created by an act of Congress, and its duties with respect to the administration of drug scheduling are spelled out rather explicitly under the Controlled Substances Act, which makes for some dense reading.
The relevant section of the law, as I see it, requires that there must be a formal scientific/medical review to establish the basis for an Attorney General's ruling that a substance should be added to or removed from a drug schedule. That's what the Biden administration has requested.
Congress could certainly amend the law, and has done so on multiple previous occasions as indicated in the text of the Act that I linked. And that's why it irritates me when there are Green Lantern arguments that any Presidential administration could just snap its fingers and fix problems that are Congressional responsibilities. The Constitution was written to prevent Presidential magic powers (mostly - the whole treaties and war powers thing is a mess), because that's how monarchs and dictators function.
I've always been a firm believer that 3rd party voters, voting with their hearts, are always making the correct decision. I hate the Republican party for forcing my hand... Democrats till the...
I'm not conceding an inch to the Republican Party as it's currently constituted.
I've always been a firm believer that 3rd party voters, voting with their hearts, are always making the correct decision.
I hate the Republican party for forcing my hand... Democrats till the Republican party is fractured and dead.
Wish I could do this, but the Democrats have before and will again prop up insane Republicans deliberately so that they look like the only option. I can see an argument for voting as a means of...
I hate the Republican party for forcing my hand... Democrats till the Republican party is fractured and dead.
Wish I could do this, but the Democrats have before and will again prop up insane Republicans deliberately so that they look like the only option.
I can see an argument for voting as a means of holding back the tide of hell (however insignificantly) until a fix is developed, but not as a means of creating or implementing such a fix. The status quo does not want to change.
Thank you for doing the homework on this. I agree, it's not a good look. It's a clear signal that cannabis decriminalization, let alone legalization, isn't a priority for the Biden administration....
Thank you for doing the homework on this.
I agree, it's not a good look. It's a clear signal that cannabis decriminalization, let alone legalization, isn't a priority for the Biden administration. The galaxy-brained political calculus probably involves the election cycle, support in law-'n'-order states and cities (we know Biden is very familiar with leveraging these concerns), police unions, and how scarce political capital must be spent. You'd think he could hammer out some mediagenic bipartisan action with all the Congressfolk who're backing or backed by Big Weed.
From the article:
This is in addition to the previous October, 2022 pardon for simple possession of marijuana.
I'm not thrilled with this trickle of justice, or the pace of the evaluation and reclassification of cannabis from Controlled Substances Act Schedule I (no legitimate medical uses, high abuse potential) to Schedule III (medical uses, low-to-moderate abuse potential). Nonetheless, it's an improvement.
since the details of the differences between the two pardons seem to be pretty vague / poorly explained in news articles, here's the two proclamations side by side:
October 2022 and December 2023
as far as I can tell, the only difference is that the original covered "simple possession of marijuana" while the newer one also covers "attempted simple possession of marijuana" and "use of marijuana".
from Biden's 2020 campaign website, emphasis added:
this campaign pledge seems to only exist, as far as I can find, on his "Biden's plan for Black America" page.
he's been in office for almost 3 years now, and we've gotten two tiny steps towards something he promised in 2020.
his October 2022 announcement directed HHS "to initiate the administrative process to review expeditiously how marijuana is scheduled under federal law".
almost a year later, HHS said they thought that cannabis should be Schedule III, not Schedule I.. but as far as I can tell, they never actually announced this, it only came from a leaked internal government memo:
what's stopping Biden from going further? what's stopping him from fulfilling his campaign promises?
it took a year and a half from his inauguration to his first announcement in October 2022. then another 10 months for HHS to "consider" it. then they made a recommendation to the DEA, who we assume is also "considering" it. maybe they're trying to do some galaxy-brain political shit and saving up the announcement for closer to the 2024 election?
the downside would be, if the DEA under Biden rescheduled cannabis purely through executive action, not an act of Congress, then a future Republican president, Trump or whoever else, would be able to move it back to Schedule I.
and...so what? wouldn't that be good? how many times have you heard someone disaffected with politics talk about how both parties are the same and so why bother voting? could there possibility be a better counterexample to that then "a Democratic president tried to decriminalize cannabis, and then a Republican president rolled it back"?
from March 2022: Former Pittsburgh defense attorney gets 5 years in prison for marijuana distribution
5 years in federal prison for selling marijuana. Biden could pardon him, either as a one-off, or as part of one of these two big announcements he's made. he chose not to. instead he's chosen both times to use this smokescreen of "people charged federally with simple possession" which is not zero people, but is such a small number that it rounds down to zero.
On further consideration, I'm going to take issue with one thing:
That would not be good. Heightening the contradictions might be fine revolutionary strategy, but we're talking about actual Fascists winning. As much as I might despise the Biden administration's fecklessness on any number of issues, I'm not conceding an inch to the Republican Party as it's currently constituted. We can push the Democrats in a progressive direction peacefully, but the Republicans will silence, imprison, maim or kill us, forever if they get the chance.
And I'll keep banging on that message for the rest of the coming year, because it's meaningful for everything I care about - human rights, climate change and pollution, wage inequity, access to basic food, shelter, and medicine, freedom of thought and religion, global peace and an end to nuclear weapons...
Ending rant here, and my apologies for soapboxing.
I really don't understand this as a response to the quote you provided. They aren't suggesting we should let a republican win just so they can roll back decriminalization or a schedule change to highlight the differences.
Making those initial moves would be positive regardless, and when another republican gets elected at some point they would have tougher optics trying to roll it back. When the alternative is "not trying to decriminalize cannabis" and "Republicans not having to highlight any differences at all to keep it illegal if they win", I don't see how there's anything to take issue with?
I totally understand the rant, but it seems to be more of a general response to any criticism of Biden than addressing any actual points that were made. As if we're afraid to criticize him at all lest we encourage "both-sideism" that discourages us from fighting Republicans as strongly. That's a real pragmatic concern in media and public discourse, but I think this is pretty safe space for us to be able to freely criticize Biden without letting go of the fact that the vast-majority of us will go vote blue regardless.
Yes there is complexity and nuance to how much power the president truly has to make these changes, but there absolutely is truth that at the very least pardons like this could have been done sooner and that his administration has failed to even attempt some campaign promises, let alone be able to follow through on many. We can acknowledge that and apply internal pressure while still recognizing what is at stake and planning to vote blue.
My issue was specifically with the "so what? wouldn't that be good?" rhetorical questions.
I'm not sure how you interpreted what I wrote as an apologia for the Biden administration's inadequacies, or fear of both-sidesism. But if it wasn't clear enough, I agree with @spit-evil-olive-tips that the President Biden could make cannabis decriminalization a higher priority, that the DEA has provided at least part of the requested evidence for the Attorney General to reschedule the drug, and that there are purely political reasons why it hasn't been done yet.
It's totally within Biden's power to grant Federal pardons, and that's not happening quickly enough - again, politics. I don't have evidence, but it would make sense to keep up a slow dribble of pardons and maintain the appearance of something being done.
Cannabis rescheduling doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the failures that the Biden administration should take blame for, like failing to back striking railway workers adequately, increasing fossil fuel production, shipping further weapons to Israel... It feels like Biden is trying to appease the pro-business, pro-Israel, and pro-law enforcement wings of the Republican Party/conservative Democrats, while simultaneously pitching himself as pro-worker, pro-woman, pro-environment, and it stinks to high heaven. We knew Biden was the least good of the available Democratic Party options, and we voted for him in the general election because he's not unthinkably evil. In spite of that decidedly mixed record, I'm asking for another vote against evil, if not in favor of Biden.
That's exactly why he should legalize it. Marijuana legalization is incredibly popular, with 88% supporting it for medical use and 59% supporting it for recreational use as well. It's popular enough, and there's enough money in the industry now, that I'm not even sure Republicans would attack Biden for it, instead preferring to attack him on other matters. This could be an easy win for Biden that would also do some real good, but he still doesn't do it. The stakes are high, and it's frustrating seeing the Democrats fumble like this.
Please refer to this. Biden does not have the power to do what you want, even though his campaign implied that he did, as @spit-evil-olive-tips mentioned.
I will say that even if the DEA reschedules cannabis to Schedule III*, that's not legalization for recreational purposes. Schedule III drugs are still controlled and require prescriptions. But it would take an act of Congress to remove marijuana from CSA restrictions.
*It's frankly baffling to me that any responsible medical authority could find that cannabis has higher potential for abuse and dependency than Xanax or Valium (Schedule IV), or even low-dose codeine (Schedule V), but what do I know.
The requested HHS review was completed, as seen in spit-evil-olive-tips' initial post; The path to rescheduling seems open by your reading. I forgot to specify in my initial post that even just the rescheduling, or legalization for medical purposes to my understanding, would do some real good still.
But it would've been nice if he'd at least tried for full legalization while the Democrats held the Senate, even if it would've faced steep resistance to passing. It would've been nice he started the HHS review before October 2022, where IIRC polls predicted Democrats would likely lose control of Congress, and so there was no chance of the review being completed at a time when people might've expected them to do something about it.
You're absolutely correct, and I find it suspicious that the DEA memo hasn't been made part of the public record. It wouldn't surprise me if the announcement will be part of a little bundle of October surprises being prepared to amp up the interested voters on the eve of the Presidential election.
And full disclosure - I am a medical marijuana user under Michigan law. It galls me that had to sneak illegal drugs in to my mother while she suffered through chemotherapy, and that I can't legally travel between states with a necessary medication. I've got friends with permanent criminal records for using or growing their own pharmaceuticals. There are millions of Americans (and probably some involved in the international illegal trade) for whom cannabis legalization would be a significant relief.
As /u/spit-evil-olive-tips wrote, there's no telling what galaxy-brained political gamesmanship is going on with Biden, his advisors, and the Democratic Party leadership. I'll generously concede that cannabis might not be even the 100th highest item on their agenda, but if they can't be trusted to get the easy wins, it will take excess effort to convince voters they're devoted to the difficult ones.
The republicans want legal weed to use themselves, but they want the people in jail for it to stay there. Mostly because they perceive them as being predominantly black, latin, or left, coupled with the general othering of convicts, regardless of crime.
It all comes back to the usual fascist mentality that laws exist to hurt an out group and should not be applied to an in group.
I suspect that their most desirable scenario is weed being in an unenforced superposition of legality in red states, but federally illegal so a Republican-led DEA can operate against minorities in blue states, regardless of their own laws. (Nothing's changed since the Civil War: unlimited "states' rights" for slave states, Fugitive Slave Acts binding free states.)
Because of the rule of 10,000...
One of Nixon's top advisors
The War on Drugs was always about controlling dissidents, not protecting communities.
Well, that... And for-profit prison systems benefit greatly from a large group of easily convicted people.
That's part of why it persists. The earlier private prisons were a loophole to keep slavery alive in the late 19th century. Bad, but not terribly widespread.
The War on Drugs started in 1971, but the modern incarnation of private prisons didn't really start until the 1980's under Reagan (no surprises there).
right, I forgot the importance of never writing anything on Tildes that can be interpreted two different ways.
I wasn't saying Trump winning would be good overall. because obviously it would be terrible.
I was just saying that if Biden succeeded in rescheduling cannabis, and then if Trump won in 2024, even in that worst-case scenario there's a small silver lining in terms of providing such a clear example of how Democrats and Republicans aren't the same. (and in particular, an example that would resonate well with your stereotypical disaffected voter)
I apologize - this wasn't intended as a personal attack, and it's on me for not inquiring further as to your intended meaning. I'll work on my kneejerk response to the faintest whiff of accelerationist argument.
I'm not familiar with how the DEA works, could you help catch me up?
My understanding is that it's part of the executive branch, so I would think that the president telling them to reschedule something through either executive order or just informal pressure of "do it or you're fired" wouldn't be an expansion of executive power.
So why would a president doing so be bad (in that it sets a precedent for the next president to misuse some new power)? What role would Congress play if that was the route taken instead? It doesn't seem like Congress could pass a law to reschedule a drug. Could they pass a law forbidding enforcement of scheduling rules against marijuana?
I'm not an administrative law expert or even any kind of lawyer, and my paralegal days are far behind me. So I'm not prepared to say how much the DEA can do under an executive order. The DEA was created by an act of Congress, and its duties with respect to the administration of drug scheduling are spelled out rather explicitly under the Controlled Substances Act, which makes for some dense reading.
The relevant section of the law, as I see it, requires that there must be a formal scientific/medical review to establish the basis for an Attorney General's ruling that a substance should be added to or removed from a drug schedule. That's what the Biden administration has requested.
Congress could certainly amend the law, and has done so on multiple previous occasions as indicated in the text of the Act that I linked. And that's why it irritates me when there are Green Lantern arguments that any Presidential administration could just snap its fingers and fix problems that are Congressional responsibilities. The Constitution was written to prevent Presidential magic powers (mostly - the whole treaties and war powers thing is a mess), because that's how monarchs and dictators function.
I've always been a firm believer that 3rd party voters, voting with their hearts, are always making the correct decision.
I hate the Republican party for forcing my hand... Democrats till the Republican party is fractured and dead.
Wish I could do this, but the Democrats have before and will again prop up insane Republicans deliberately so that they look like the only option.
I can see an argument for voting as a means of holding back the tide of hell (however insignificantly) until a fix is developed, but not as a means of creating or implementing such a fix. The status quo does not want to change.
I evaluate elections case by case. Trump for me is a special kind of terrible. There are others that are as extremely bad but they are all outliers.
Thank you for doing the homework on this.
I agree, it's not a good look. It's a clear signal that cannabis decriminalization, let alone legalization, isn't a priority for the Biden administration. The galaxy-brained political calculus probably involves the election cycle, support in law-'n'-order states and cities (we know Biden is very familiar with leveraging these concerns), police unions, and how scarce political capital must be spent. You'd think he could hammer out some mediagenic bipartisan action with all the Congressfolk who're backing or backed by Big Weed.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/yTixi