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).
Will this allow dispenseries and retail stores to use banking?
Probably not yet…biggest advantage of moving from Sch 1 to Sch 3 is that it means federal research grants/money can be used now to determine what the actual medicinal uses.
Will they retroactively commute sentences of people who were charged with the previous classification?
Biden has done what he is able to do. He proclaimed presidential pardon for federal marijuana charges in late 2022. However, the executive branch has no authority to impact state level charges, which would likely be the vast majority of people affected by marijuana policing over time. In a world where government works as intended, state level organizations should take their cues from what the federal government is doing, but, as I understand it, they are not necessarily beholden to slavishly adopt the federal posture. Perhaps someone with a deeper understanding might illuminate us further.
That’s about right.
Federal prosecution is rare. If they charge you with marijuana possession at the federal level, then there’s probably a list of a dozen other charges on top of it, and at least one of them is the serious thing they’re actually after you for. Feds don’t waste their time with this shit unless there’s a bigger reason.
So what Biden did has very little practical effect. A bunch of people got one charge among many taken off their record. That’s what he’s able to do with just a stroke of a pen. The rest is dependent on states, federal congress, or the vast federal bureaucracy.
As a small, optimistic caveat to the above, Biden’s pardon does work for anyone who was charged in Washington DC since they don’t have a state body representing them. So, yes, typically anyone with a federal marijuana charge is also likely the subject of many more serious charges, there is a population of people that may have received immediate relief at the time, which is good.
No, because it’s still illegal. This reclassification is a compromise, not a solution.
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.
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.
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?
Still illegal without prescription