This is not a win, don’t mistake it. They reclassified it and now it’s going to be even hard to legalize because they’ll use the excuse “we reclassified it already!”. Full legalization is what we need, this doesn’t actually change shit. Marijuana being illegal is one of the most racist laws we have.
If you’re so up in arms about the inherent racism in the criminalization and exploitation of cannabis, maybe don’t use the manufactured term “marijuana”, hmm? Coined to sound foreign (yes, Spanish specifically), it’s part of the whole plan in the first place. 🤫
manufactured term “marijuana”
In accordance with my initial point that it’s a racist law to keep it illegal, I’ll use cannabis from now on. Reading the history of the usage of the term “marijuana/marihuana/mariguana”.
It’s funny how we try to regulate a plant, yet the term cannabis could be referring to industrial hemp or the dankest highest THC concentration cultivar possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana_(word)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_sativa#Cultivars
Broadly, there are three main cultivar groups of cannabis that are cultivated today:
Cultivars primarily cultivated for their fibre, characterized by long stems and little branching.[21]
Cultivars grown for seed which can be eaten entirely raw or from which hemp oil is extracted.
Cultivars grown for medicinal or recreational purposes, characterized by extensive branching to maximize the number of flowers.[21]
A nominal if not legal distinction is often made between industrial hemp, with concentrations of psychoactive compounds far too low to be useful for that purpose, and marijuana.
Only on lemmy would Biden drastically reducing a very stupid and racist drug law that has persisted for decades be a bad thing.
Changing the classification away from “its basically heroin” changes a lot actually. Research funding, federal therapeutic use, authorized law enforcement actions, banking laws, these are all able to be shifted and changed in the context of weed now.
Its not the end of federal legalization attempts, it’s the start. It drastically normalizes something at a federal level that has already been legalized at a state level. That’s how you fully legalize it.
It’s not some imagined set back because of weak “we did enough already” arguments that no one actually believes, especially with federal legalization at 70% popularity.
federal legalization at 70% popularity
You just made clear that we don’t have a system that represents the people. How exactly does it become legal now with the argument “we just reclassified it”? When does that happen? 2, 5, 10 years from now?
You just made clear that we don’t have a system that represents the people.
Who the fuck thought we did?
Only on lemmy would Biden drastically reduceding a very stupid and racist drug classification that has persisted for decades be a bad thing.
Lemmy is so full of extremists it’s insane. Nothing but unwavering ideological commitment is accepted by any side. There is no positive news, only unethical compromise.
Hey a half a loaf. Its Zenos paradox of legalization. With progress like this, in another 40 years we’ll be another halfway there to legalization.
Society is like a big vehicle. It takes time to change its course. Calm down.
Calm down.
The world doesn’t actually improve in fits an starts. Incrementalism is a fallacy. The world improves in large sweeping movements that are eventually ground backwards. We make major improvement through bold action, not trivial improvements.
I have no obligation to support a muted political movement incapable of accomplishing its purported objectives.
US Democrats could have done this a decade ago. They could have codified abortion rights. They could have made so many things a priority: they choose not to. I owe nothing to a failed approach to politics.
US Democrats could have done this a decade ago. They could have codified abortion rights. They could have made so many things a priority: they choose not to. I owe nothing to a failed approach to politics.
I must correct you there. There is a theory that says that politics has to fulfill the will of its average voter. It can not lean further left than that. Otherwise it looses voters on the righter side.
Ok, so… What big, sweeping things are YOU doing to make society better? Where’s your list of accomplishments?
The Democrats don’t have a perfect track record, not even close. But being part of the online peanut gallery of whiners doesn’t get us anywhere. I’m so tired of people who are all commentary and no action, people who aren’t going to be part of progress (big or small) are part of the problem no matter how smug you act about it.
That all depends on when Democrats get congressional majority. Congress is responsible for legislative decriminalization.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3617
You make the assumption that Democrats (the politicians, not the voters) actually see this as a legislative priority.
Kamala has been treating it as priority, and speaking in favor of it every chance she gets. The bill was co-sponsored by 114 Democrats.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3617/cosponsors
It will at least open up research for cannabis drug development into FDA approved products.
Its 10 years too late for anyone to care I think. Democrats should have just straight up legalized under Obama, and even if they legalized now, they aren’t going to be making major points off this politically. Its just jerk-off material for the commentary crowd. If it isn’t going to make a difference to peoples lived experience, it isn’t worth pursuing.
You guys seem to think that the democrats had a fillabuster proof majority the entirety of obama’s terms.
They had two years. In those two years, they spent their capital on getting the ACA passed.
Then the 2010 midterms happened, and the dems lost any chance of anything meaningful happening.
It also basically will legalize Medical cannabis federally. This could lead to many other benefits. Get a medical card, it’s legit with the state and the feds, then there shouldn’t be any grounds for drug tests to affect your employment.
There’s two things this changes.
-
Easier to research.
-
We get a lot less tax money from it.
For 1, it’s not that much of a gain, we don’t need more studies to show it’s safe. That’s been accomplished, and it wasn’t that hard to do a study the last couple years.
For 2, tax money was the biggest reason states could be convinced to legalize.
There’s a little bit of a 3 involved. I forget the specifics from an earlier article, but I read something about while a lower schedule may let them transition from cash only to banking, the DEA can still seize all their funds because it’s on the schedule. It’s just now they can do it from a computer.
When they don’t use banks, at least the DEA had to actually show up and steal seize their cash.
So say a Republican takes office and is pissed at Cali, he can tell the DEA to freeze and seize the bank accounts of every business and person connected to the cannabis industry.
And it’d all be 100% legal, take very little effort, and can easily be converted into some kind of “border security” bullshit like building a giant pointless wall.
I dunno, lately I keep getting frustrated at people never realizing what shit can naturally lead to. Maybe my standards for planning ahead need lowered?
I just don’t understand why this is acceptable when Biden told us decriminalization was the goal.
A co.plete removal from the schedule would have been that, and would have accomplished a lot and taken the same effort as this. I don’t see why we don’t try to actually fix shit.
Biden is right of Reagan.
Get a clue.
Dems are not in favor of legalization. Neither are liberals.
I don’t see why we don’t try to actually fix shit.
Because then they can’t keep kicking the can down the road for the next election.
Gotta keep that voter base involved somehow, and when you aren’t actually gonna give them anything to be happy about, you’ve got to trot out nice little lies you’ll never follow through with to make them get out to vote.
Now if we could just agree that a plant that grows naturally is not a fucking drug
Just because something psychoactive grows in nature doesn’t mean it is not a drug. Anything that has a physical or psychoactive effect, or anything at all beyond nutrition, is a drug. DMT, Salvia, Psilocin, Mescaline, Phenethylamine, Opium, these are all indeed drugs.
The reason you said this is because the word drug has a (very unfair) negative association because it is used as a blanket term to describe the reason someone acts a certain way on them, therefore making it seem that all drugs are bad (drugs, like anything in life, are only bad if you abuse them).
What happened to legalization?
In all but a handful of states, you can buy almost anything you want online and have it legally shipped to you.
The President can initiate rescheduling, but does not have the power to decriminalize (legalize) a drug on their own. That requires an act of Congress. The current bill for decriminalization and record expungement is in the House with 113 Democrat cosponsors. We’re just waiting on Republicans to come around.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3617/cosponsors
