Comment by InquisitiveApathy@lemm.ee on Happy 420?

He pushed a recommendation for it to be rescheduled to the DEA like two years ago and they’ve been stonewalling?

Timeline of events since that recommendation was made

Oh so he actually did something? Almost like OP is big fat phoney.

Eeyy everybaudy thiz guys a fhooneey!!

Before one of OP’s other posts on this topic was removed as misinformation, I asked under that post what Biden could possibly have done aside from pardoning all federal convictions for possession, requesting the DEA to reschedule marijuana, and introducing a bill for full federal legalization which the Republicans defeated (all three of which happened).

Crickets man. (I actually learned since then that it’s a little more complex – it actually seems like maybe Biden was opposed to the full legalization bill that Schumer was pushing, and there was definitely some level of Democratic opposition in the senate. So maybe that piece of the criticism is legit, IDK, but OP never brought that stuff up to me when I asked what Biden should do.)

That conversation was actually the exact point that I became confident that OP’s just here to shit on Biden and specifically Biden for whatever reason, and any concordance that emerges between what he’s saying and the truth is purely accidental, and he knows it.

(Also, fun fact Matt Gaetz switched sides to join with 2 other House Republicans to vote for weed legalization.)

I looked into this and found this legal sidebar somewhat informative.

In classic Biden/dem fashion, while it’s true he has done something that could lead towards delivering on his campaign promise, it’s comically little and falls far short of his full power. Why hasn’t he tried issuing executive orders to legalize or reschedule and force opponents of legalization to crawl out of the woodwork in a lawsuit? Alternatively, the DEA is part of the executive branch. He could immediately replace directors there with those who will implement this policy - why hasn’t this been done?

Biden literally threw up his hands and said “awww but my allies in Congress won’t let me do it.” Disingenuous at best.

In classic Biden/dem fashion, while it’s true he has done something that could lead towards delivering on his campaign promise, it’s comically little and falls far short of his full power.

This would be completely accurate if you took the “Biden/” part out of it. I know it’s a popular myth that Biden is part of this pattern, but in actuality he did:

Pass a climate bill that targets 40% reduction in emissions by 2030
Forgave around $144 billion in student loan debt
Boosted income for the poorest wage earners by a huge amount (outpacing even the pretty historic inflation of the last couple of years as follow-on effects from Covid took hold)
Raised corporate tax significantly to pay for all of the above

He tried to do more on all fronts, but it’s far from comical and the fact that he got that much done over stiff Republican resistance is to me pretty fuckin impressive. Example – he tried to forgive half a trillion dollars of student loan debt through some direct executive action, and it went to the Supreme Court and they told him no.

Like I said though, I think marijuana is actually one isolated instance where that criticism that he wasn’t actually trying to support full legalization / wasn’t doing as much as he could to get it done might be halfway warranted. But to me that’s more of an exception to his usual pattern.

I mean it’s the classic strategy. The reason everyone accuses them of doing fucking nothing is because there’s always a throw it to congress mentality, then congress is inevitably deadlocked by like two guys because of the way the system is set up, and then whenever it isn’t deadlocked, suddenly there’s some other internal opposition, until it can be deadlocked again in the next 15 minutes. People at this point want other more theoretical measures enacted, like when people were talking about putting abortion clinics on federal land or in national parks. I don’t even think stuff like that would be a bad play. Even if it wasn’t necessarily successful, it’d do a hell of a lot to show that there’s something more being done than the normal state of affairs, which is exactly what people want.

Precisely. We deserve someone who will fight for us, and do everything possible to enact what they believe in (and what we voted for) even if it’s not the ideal solution. This milquetoast bullshit just isn’t going to get the votes anymore, sorry establishment dems but after 40 years enough is enough.

For one administration after another, all we get is “that’s just no longer a priority,” “we’ll leave it to Congress for a bipartisan compromise,” “the senate parliamentarian won’t let us,” “Manchin and Sinema aren’t actually democrats,” or my personal favorite: “we can’t because the republicans will yell at us.” This is wrong and it’s absolutely infuriating. It’s made 10x worse when all we ever hear about progressive ideas is “well how you gonna pay for that?!” The answer to this is glaringly obvious - we pay for it the same way we pay for tax cuts for the rich, or funds to bomb and kill brown children in the middle east. And just like those initiatives, we make it happen no matter what it takes - and if you don’t like it, you can vote us out of office come November.

It’s too bad that he’s just trying to shit on Biden. I have always been pro legalization.

Honestly I kind of like that the states are going back to having radically different systems. That was the way it was supposed to be – like if you think weed should be legal, or illegal, then try it out, and everyone can watch it in practice and see how it works.

I don’t like that it’s so polarized to only two big centers of gravity and one of them is Naziism but the idea of it being a variety seems like more of the idea of what the US was supposed to be.

States rights: Republicans get what they want and Democrats don’t have to fight for anything nationwide.

? I am confuse

States’ rights in this particular case led to marijuana legalization a bunch of places which was pretty far from what the Republicans wanted

And a bunch of Democrats have been fighting for full federal legalization for a few years now. I’m aware there’s a mythology that it’s every Democrat’s fault that 99% of Republicans voted in lock-step against it, which meant that little slivers of Democratic opposition were able to defeat it, but I’m not convinced by that logic

I’m aware that some Republicans use “states’ rights” as a fig leaf for their awful policies but how on Earth are you trying to apply it in that way to this particular issue

Then why is one of his campaign promises written as: “As president he will decriminalize cannabis…”

Is his campaign promising things he doesn’t have the power to do?

No one politician has the power to do anything directly, really. That’s how the US system of government works. It’s fundemantal to how it operates that no one politician can promise to singlehandedly do anything. So, since everyone understands that, they say what they intend to do.

Exactly, was looking for this exact comment,

So many children are just learning about politics and don’t yet understand that things normally don’t just happen when a president doesn’t abuse executive orders

This is correct. The HHS recommended rescheduling, and the DEA hasn’t responded to the recommendation. They’re probably concerned it’ll affect their budget having fewer criminals to pursue.

This is the relevant bit from the article:

In late 2022, President Joe Biden issued an executive order directing HHS to review marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, while giving a recommendation on whether it should be rescheduled. After a roughly year-long review, HHS sent a letter to the DEA in August requesting that they move marijuana to Schedule III.

They had their own review and recommended that Cannabis be moved from Schedule I(Drugs with no medicinal value and a high risk of harm/abuse - heroin,LSD,etc) to Schedule III(Drugs with low risk of harm/abuse and clear medicinal value - cough syrup,Ketamine,etc).

The Controlled Substances Act which established all our current drugs laws states that ONLY the DEA has the power to ultimately change the classification of any controlled substance. If the DEA does not feel inclined to change this, then nothing will happen with the recommendation. Biden can always play political hardball since the head of the agency is an appointed position, but it would still need to be confirmed by the Senate in the end.

I wouldn’t expect to see a drop to schedule III, but I think in the next five or so year we may see it become schedule II. Progress is progress I guess.

Exactly. He could issue an executive order, but if the DEA doesn’t agree before the order expires, it would be far more of devastating to the industry as a whole.

~~He literally did issue an executive order, in late 2022.~~ The DEA seem to have their thumbs up their arses though.

Edit: It seems likely that I was incorrect here. I was going off of the article linked in the top level comment (https://themarijuanaherald.com/2024/04/a-complete-timeline-of-the-deas-marijuana-scheduling-review-prompted-by-department-of-health-recommendation/ ) which states that Biden did issue an executive order. It appears that the article was wrong, but more than that, I was wrong to assert this so confidently when I had only skim read an article and didn’t follow up on its sources (plus I’m not American, so I should be more mindful of checking things if I’m commenting on US government related stuff.

The DEA seem like a large part of the problem and there may well be more that Biden could be doing to move this along, but I don’t know enough to speculate.

I don’t have a link because it appears that you’re right and I was mistaken. I’ve edited my comment to reflect that, I apologise for speaking so confidently on something that actually, I wasn’t sure of. Thanks for challenging me on it — realising I was wrong has made me feel like a bit of an arse right now, but I’d rather feel that than be blissfully ignorant and spreading misinformation. I appreciate the time you spent to fact check me.

Schedule III(Drugs with low risk of harm/abuse and clear medicinal value - cough syrup,Ketamine,etc).

The same cough syrup that contains codeine, an opiate and creates a very strong physical addiction? The same that killed Juice WRLD and Pimp C? The one that almost killed Lil Nas and Macklemore?

The fact that marijuana is right now considered as more harmful than this and should be lowered to this kind of level is just fucked up

Adderall is schedule 2

You’re right, I edited that bit to replace it with Ketamine!

Tying law enforcement funding to their arrests is just the most idiotic idea and I am shocked at how few Congress folks have been speed trapped if they actually can’t see why

Plus, the potheads are probably easier to catch.

stuff like this needs some weight behind it to pass, not just a one and done recommendation.

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