But the pardon can allow those with convictions on their record to live a normal life.
Edit: major caveat, all the data harvesting and background check firms generally do not proactively purge their data sets as they’re supposed to. It’s your obligation to follow up with every single one of them individually, and there are a whole lot of them, they operate under the radar, and it’s hard to contact them. Finally it’s impossible to verify they actually did.
>major caveat, all the data harvesting and background check firms generally do not proactively purge their data sets as they’re supposed to.
if they 'are supposed to' then it sounds like a potential civil liability if they have not done what they were supposed to do.
>It’s your obligation to follow up with every single one of them individually
or a lawyer could find some firms that did not do as they were supposed to, and some people that would have standing to sue, and ka-ching? This of course depends if my understand of "are supposed to" is correct.
But the quoted statistic is confusing. Under what specifics would 300 people = 0.5% of the total prison population? As I understand it, the total prison population of the USA is over 1 million, and the subset designated 'federal prisoners' is, by itself, over 200,000.
I think most libertarians argue holds water that weed and dealing weed is a victimless crime. Now redo that with "how many people are in for dealing weed (and only weed) and other drugs" and that number goes way up. Obviously people found with guns and doing violence while selling drugs is another thing, no longer victimless. The War on Drugs is multidecade failure
The Biden administration—HHS, specifically—has recommended rescheduling marijuana as a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act.
> "If the recommendation is approved, marijuana would no longer be listed as a dangerous substance like heroin or LSD and it would reduce or potentially eliminate criminal penalties for possession. The decision rests with the DEA, which has rarely, if ever, rejected a rescheduling recommendation from HHS."
Sure, but thousands of people now have one less obstacle to passing a background check for a job, etc. I agree with you about the scheduling, but this is more than a gesture, and will have a material impact on a lot of people, especially in DC.
The president only has the power to pardon people convicted or accused of violating federal law and prosecuted in federal court.
The problem is that nearly all people arrested for simple possession of marijuana aren't charged under federal law nor prosecuted in federal court. They are charged under state law that similarly outlaws marijuana possession and prosecuted in state court. The president does not have the power to pardon convictions and punishment in state court.
As the proclamation says, the District of Columbia's local laws are technically federal laws. So it wipes out the convictions of a good number of people in one of our major cities.
I can't quite tell if this applies to military convictions. That would be the other area where the Federal government takes the time to prosecute something as minor as mere possession or use.
Another interesting question: does this actually pardon, or is it more like an open call for applications? It looks to me like you'd want to get that pardon certificate from the WH Pardon lawyer well before the next election.
> As the proclamation says, the District of Columbia's local laws are technically federal laws. So it wipes out the convictions of a good number of people in one of our major cities.
According to the report that preceded this action, more than 75% of all federal possession convictions were prosecuted in Arizona. Apparently it was just a rogue jurisdiction.
My guess would be that by the president pardoning these crimes, it would potentially make it more acceptable for governors to do the same for state level crimes.
However, it still doesn't solve the overarching issue of draconian drug laws.
Believe it or not, I actually know someone who was federally charged for possession of marijuana in the last few years.
He worked as a mover and moved someone onto a military base (in a decriminalized state). He forgot he had his weed in his jacket pocket when they got searched entering the base. Didn't get jail, but did get probation and a record of it.
> The president only has the power to pardon people convicted or accused of violating federal law and prosecuted in federal court.
The president can pardon any offense against the united states except impeachment. State offenses have always been left to governors to pardon but states are what make the united states and as such state offenses while violating only state law, they are an offense against a state that is part of the union and affect a citizen of the union, as such the president has ulitmate power to pardon.
This is similar to how state legal dispute or prosecution can ultimately be decided by the supreme court of the united states. It does not stop at the state's supreme court.
If trump gets elected next year for example, he can pardon himself of his upcoming likely conviction in georgia. Else you have a situation where in 2028 as soon as he leaves office he becomes a wanted criminal.
Presidents know that pardoning a stare criminal is overriding state law and alienating voters from that state and risking rifts in the union.
I believe the president supersedes state governors in every power they have except things like appointments and firings at the state level.
> Does the President have authority to grant clemency for a state conviction?
No. The President’s clemency power is conferred by Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which provides: “The President . . . shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Thus, the President’s authority to grant clemency is limited to federal offenses
And when they are charged under federal law, it is often a negotiated downgrade from distribution, i.e. people rarely get sentenced for mere possession.
This pardon is for the entire United States, at least at the federal level. I don’t think kids sitting in a county jail for brining a joint to school in west Texas are going anywhere, though!
And the last is specific to possession on federal properties.
So no, the headline is not overselling the implications. If you simply possessed marijuana and were convicted under federal law, your case is going to be pardoned.
The president can however pardon in states using “emergency powers”.
Our constitution does not define the breadth and depth of emergency powers and it would be up for both congress and SCOTUS to decide that the president can’t do that.
I would hope that a president would just say fuck it and try this though. As much as I want things to be done “the right way”, I value lives of folks more than my neurodivergent desire to have things done neatly.
I don't think it is the case that the President can use "emergency powers" to pardon state crimes; the same argument suggests that the President can use those powers to declare themselves dictator for life.
POTUS: I'm pardoning everybody in your state who has a drug conviction.
STATE GOV: No, you aren't.
POTUS: You have to let all of those people out of prison.
STATE GOV: No, we don't.
POTUS: It's an emergency!
STATE GOV: No, it isn't.
Nothing in currently recognized emergency powers allows the president to pardon state crimes, and in fact it’s very clearly settled law that he cannot do so.
No state or federal court is likely to respect or uphold such an abuse of power as long as US democracy remains intact … and while US democracy is very much in jeopardy right now, it won’t vanish before the next president takes over - Biden will follow the rules of the democratic system.
That is fairly wild when you phrase it like that. Especially as you could literally be 100ft from someone getting cuffs put on who is across the border in another state, while you are getting gold treatment in a dispensary trying to figure out what strain you want.
I don't disagree that this is good for those involved or affected.
However, nothing stops the same from happening to someone tomorrow. The past several administrations have been relying too heavily on executive fiat for the optics.
The DEA needs to reschedule it. Anything else is at best a band-aid, if not simple lip service to buy votes.
Calling it “for optics” is downplaying the severity of the situation. The reason presidents rely so much on executive fiat is because our actual legislative system has paralyzed itself with partisan politics, gerrymandering, and the filibuster.
Obviously it’s intentional that it’s hard to pass things, and legitimately controversial things should be difficult to pass (and shouldn’t happen by executive fiat), but there are 2nd and 3rd order interests overriding what should be the 1st order interest of effective legislation.
Among these 2nd/3rd order interests: not looking bad to your party, making the other party look bad to their constituents, not upsetting some specific demagogues, not losing personal or party power at all costs, winning dunks in social media, looking good for the camera, ensuring that no third party could emerge, ensuring that if the other party gains power that they are incapable of exercising it, etc
The problem with blaming Congress is that the harms could be easily mitigated by the DEA changing the scheduling, which was my point.
Rumor has it that is in the works, but the fact that it has taken so long starts and ends with the executive office.
That said, Congress decriminalizing it entirely is definitely something that is going to take too long, and will also be entirely the fault of Congress.
The DEA needs to have this authority rescinded. They clearly cannot be trusted with it, and they have no impetus to remove historically misclassified drugs off the list, as it would reduce their overall budget.
It's the federal version of the Siebert strategy and it's completely injust.
> They clearly cannot be trusted with it, and they have no impetus to remove historically misclassified drugs off the list, as it would reduce their overall budget.
If that's their logic then someone there can't do math. Between fentanyl, other opioids, and meth they have plenty to do.
The optics, for a modern democratic republic, aren’t even that fantastic: pardons and proclamations are the acts of Kings. Democracies change laws through debate, legislation, and the voting by the representatives of the people.
I hope this pardon doesn’t dilute the will for more substantive drug policy reform.
High officials have pardon power in a great many democratic republics. And when the country has a parliamentary system and government is led by the prime minister, sometimes pardon power rests with the president whose position is seen as aloof from all the debate and strife in parliament.
The problem is that the US has difficulty operating as a modern democracy in general.
Yeah sure, I agree with you that proclamations and executive orders are inherently vulnerable to the whims of whomever happens to hold the office and have no place in a democracy.
But the legislative branch, as it currently operates, is not much different. In practice it results in huge pendulum swings and deadlocks, making every 2 years (because midterms) a nail biting event for the populous because hard fought rights and legislation can be undone in the blink of an eye.
As someone who grew up in a coalition country, it’s saddening to see how people around me here in the US are constantly in a state of anxiety, filled with despair like someone who’s awaiting the return of an abusive spouse from work, wondering what will happen this time.
If we somehow could get rid of the FPTP system in our legislative system, then we can rid ourselves from the two party system.
Not only will this significantly lessen things like gerrymandering, and the power of lobbying, but it would force parties to form a coalition because it’s less likely that one single party holds the majority of seats.
Parties would have to actually debate each other and try to convince each other, make concessions on all sides, in order to form a coalition.
The result of this is a more steady course in government policy, with sweeping pendulum swings being rarer and the changes being made being more nuanced.
Subsequently the citizenry doesn’t have to be on high alert 24/7 and the country can function more like a modern democracy.
And next thing in the agenda would be judicial reform.
Until then, both the legislative branch and the executive branch will subject us to whims and other pendulum swings.
Congress set the initial scheduling of some drugs, and set a process for updating the schedules within the executive branch going forward, with the DEA (in statute, the Attorney-General, but in practice within Justice its the DEA doing the main work) playing the key role (HHS in statute -- via the FDA in practice-- plays a mandatory role in advance of the decision, which is controlling in the case of a currently non-controlled drug that HHS recommends not controlling, but advisory in, I believe, all other cases.)
I don't support a train barreling toward derailment just because I prefer the view from a moving train.
If there is a single negative consequence from this pardon, some sort of Willy Horton moment for Biden, it will definitely derail the path to decriminalization and strengthen the resolve of the opposition.
I support pardons for miscarriages of the procedures of justice, not for freeing incarcerated people for actions that are still considered crimes. I guess "hooray, our team won today" is what I am supposed to be saying; time will show us the good or bad of having chosen the shortcut.
I believe the Biden administrations has gotten the ball rolling in getting the DEA to start the process of investigating it for rescheduling. Along with what looks like a few congress people, Cortez and Gaetz? I could be wrong on that. Granted, if so, the process should get sped up. [1]
But ideally we have the solution on two fronts. The DEA should still reschedule it. But Congress should also seriously implement a law decriminalizing it.
Would the House ever pass it as it would give a huge win to one side? A bit unaware in terms of US politics, but up here since legalization, life is exactly as it was before — people who smoked just continue to smoke but legally, people who don’t… don’t.
One moral risk we play is does legalizing our recreational drug (eg alcohol/cannibis) increase the harm done to addicts[0]? While I maintain that there's a logical inconsistency to having legal alcohol and illegal cannabis, I'm on the fence if the consistency should be that both are somehow controlled/illegal (though absolutely not criminal).
Another thought on the subject is how many small charges were simply because the police were fairly sure the defendant was up to some other crime, but were unable to make a court case over it (due to difficulty of evidence etc)? It may be that it was hard to prove the accused was doing X, but the bag of weed in their pocket was undeniable...
For the vast majority of drug users that are not addicted, this is obvious.
And for the addicts, criminalization is the last thing they need. Deterrence might prevent a few people from getting addicted, but not many. A lot of drug addiction is downstream of homelessness and mental health issues meaning the illegality is a very weak deterrent for the most vulnerable.
If we pushed even half of the money spent policing the war on drugs into homelessness support, mental health services, and addiction counseling and harm minimization like needle exchanges, we’d see a huge reduction in harm.
The current regime is not really interested in harm reduction; there is no effort to compare interventions based on objective harm metrics. Instead non-harm metrics like arrest rates and usage are chased. The policies start from Puritanism and historical racism and justify themselves claiming to care about harm after the fact.
To your second point… I think the racial discrimination baked into the history of drug enforcement should steer us away from giving police more excuses to incarcerate on their discretion. But even ignoring that, I don’t think we should support “we knew but could not provide evidence to prove guilt”, the justice system requires evidence for a reason.
> If we pushed even half of the money spent policing the war on drugs into homelessness support, mental health services, and addiction counseling and harm minimization like needle exchanges, we’d see a huge reduction in harm.
This point seems plausible, are there any sources that might prove it?
Also your point about racial discrimination might be a good utilitarian argument for it's better to let those racially discriminated against free alongside some folks who were also upto other crimes... The replies have definitely given me more food for thought.
What about sugar? Processed meat and fat? Carcinogenics in general? What is the extent of the control we are willing to relinquish to the government in order to control substance abuse?
And how about shifting the discussion from prohibition and control of use to the democatization of healthcare access for people to heal from addiction, if we are so interested in the welfare of addicts at this point?
I’d like governments to continue to regulate how corporations can use and productize addictive and damaging substances. Heroin in big macs would, i’m sure, sell well.
The arguments we made for drug prohibition started spreading to other areas of society. So the prohibitionist mindset was expanding, with potentially disastrous consequences for innocent people caught up in it.
Your argument about marijuana being easier to prove is a very bad scenario, regardless of how common it is/used to be. By the same logic why not make it illegal to wear socks, it would provide reason for the system to punish anybody they are 'fairly sure' is up to some other crime.
> While I maintain that there's a logical inconsistency to having legal alcohol and illegal cannabis, I'm on the fence if the consistency should be that both are somehow controlled/illegal (though absolutely not criminal).
"Illegal but not criminal" for a drug just means a very clumsily implemented tax, if you want to do that, it would strictly be better to just do a tax.
> Another thought on the subject is how many small charges were simply because the police were fairly sure the defendant was up to some other crime, but were unable to make a court case over it (due to difficulty of evidence etc)? It may be that it was hard to prove the accused was doing X, but the bag of weed in their pocket was undeniable...
Eliminating crimes whose main use is as an end-run around probable cause (for arrest) and proof beyond a reasonable doubt (for conviction) on other crimes (and thus, which exist to be selectively used to end-run due process) is an unqualified good thing.
>>> Another thought on the subject is how many small charges were simply because the police were fairly sure the defendant was up to some other crime, but were unable to make a court case over it (due to difficulty of evidence etc)? It may be that it was hard to prove the accused was doing X, but the bag of weed in their pocket was undeniable...
Then don't prosecute them. It's supposed to be hard to convict people.
> Another thought on the subject is how many small charges were simply because the police were fairly sure the defendant was up to some other crime, but were unable to make a court case over it (due to difficulty of evidence etc)? It may be that it was hard to prove the accused was doing X, but the bag of weed in their pocket was undeniable...
That is an excellent argument in favor of legalization, not one against. What you're describing is selective enforcement and prosecution, and the use of it as a tool to arrest and convict someone because they can't be proven to have committed some other crime.
Along that line of thinking, if you prohibit alcohol and cannabis (and I assume tobacco?) to protect addicts, what about casino gambling? How about micro-transaction games that are gambling in all but name?
I support full legalization of cannabis and I agree that those are valid concerns.
Yes, the harm done to addicts will probably increase. There's always trade offs. I think people on the pro-legalization side are not doing enough to address this.
One of the problems with public discourse is that each side doesn't want to give an inch to the other side. I think a lot of people who support legalization of cannabis kinda know that harms to addicts might increase, but they're afraid that if they mention that then that will just give a talking point to the prohibitionists.
Both sides are guilty of misusing or ignoring facts and concerns that don't benefit their preferred take on the issue. However, it seems to me the prohibitionists are far more egregious when it comes making bad arguments.
to be clear the kind of "fairly sure" i was referring to was the kind of undeniable first hand proof, but difficult to prove in court. Such things exist, a police officer can give testimony in court about what happened, and it's subject to a level of scrutiny, but their body cam recording confirming evidence makes it nigh impossible to argue (instead folks go for inadmissible evidence or other avenues to discredit the evidence).
My point being that sometimes criminals get away with things not because we don't know who is doing what, but because we cannot make a court case. IANAL but my understanding is that the bar (no pun intended) is extremely high (no pun intended).
Some will say "It should be high" but in the realworld we need a pragmatic approach that balances difficulty of proof vs innocent people incarcerated. It's my assertion that the only system which has 0 chance of false positives is the one which incarcerates no one. So it's about finding a good minima / balance.
I don't use cannabis. If it were to go away tomorrow, my life wouldn't change one bit.
I am absolutely thrilled with this blanket pardon.
Rephrasing the statement slightly, like:
> I am pardoning additional individuals who may continue to experience the unnecessary collateral consequences of a conviction for simple possession of beer, attempted simple possession of beer, or use of beer.
and it sounds utterly obvious, and ludicrous that it ever would have been an issue in the first place. I love a good stout or porter, and I can walk into just about any grocery store, flash my ID, hand over some cash, and walk out with a bottle of drugs that's caused far more societal harm than cannabis ever did. That I can drink a beer in public and no one bats an eye, while my neighbors could smoke a joint in their own house and go to jail for it, is insanity.
Good on you, Mr. President, for making life better for a whole lot of Americans.
100%. The War on Drugs was always in contradiction of the spirit of the 21st Amendment, which ended Prohibition.
It needs to be formally acknowledged as such, and further as fundamentally unconstitutional, but these kinds of victories take time. At least that so-called "War" is destroying fewer lives now.
How else was the government to continue to systemically hold down minorities in this country post-Civil Rights Act, while simultaneously enriching the Military Industrial Complex by flooding local law enforcement with military equipment paid for by US taxpayers?
Measured by annual average alcohol consumption in the US before and after prohibition, the 21st amendment was a huge success.
I think temporary society-scale prohibition when drug use becomes a widespread societal ill is good policy. Afterward, individual mandatory punishment/rehab for those who abuse drugs/alcohol and harm themselves and others should be the norm.
I've always taken it for granted that stuff like MIPs on your record get sealed or expunged once you hit 21. IMO it's silly to have it be a mark on your record even temporarily, but insane to me that some states don't automatically expunge misdemeanors for kids.
The counterargument is that these people are punished not for carrying weed, but for breaking the law.
The law could say "nobody shall wear a red tshirt", and I think it would then be morally okay to arrest and punish anyone who continues to wear red tshirts.
Anyone not okay with the red tshirt law can go get the law changed through the usual democratic process. But if they just ignore the law and wear a red tshirt anyway, then punish them.
Well, not all states have drugs laws that are absurd. At least one decent thing about California, Oregon, and Washington is some sensibility about legalizing or at least not prosecuting non-dangerous drugs. But, sad to say the ultra religious/conservative states are still stuck in legacy reasoning and it will take generations to change minds. And yes, alcohol is much worse than marijuana, shrooms, LSD.
Hey, let's not forget that, somehow, Mississippi has decriminalized possession for a very long time now. And more than 75% of the voters wanted medicinal marijuana. Now the state officials continue to brutally enforce their morals against medical patients,
having already dragged out the legislation to provide a legal framework for medicinal use, but that's regrettably hardly unique to medical marijuana patients.
I'm writing this from California, so I was using "neighbors" expansively to mean Americans in general. My experience in California has shaped how I see the argument. I grew up in the Midwest and heard a million reasons why weed was a ticket straight to hell. Now that I live somewhere that it's completely legal and normal for your average person to possess and use it, I can see that, literally, none of the dire warnings I'd been taught have come to pass.
California legalized weed, people who wanted to use it started admitting that they use it, and... that's about it. Nothing bad happened. If anything, I know people who switched from alcohol to weed in the spirit of harm reduction, and they seem to be better for it.
Decriminalizing drugs and other progressive changes to law enforcement have led to some problems in San Francisco and Portland.
There’s a real sense of the breakdown of social order.
"Should be acceptable" is the wrong way to look at it. "Should be illegal" is the question that should be answered.
There's a subtle but important distinction between
> Alcohol is allowed, so cannabis should be allowed.
and
> Alcohol is not illegal, so cannabis should not be illegal.
Our legal system is a default-allow denylist: unless a law says you can't do something, you can. The government doesn't grant permission. It removes it.
So because the government hasn't made the case that we should ban alcohol, I think it's on them to prove that cannabis is somehow worse to justify its banning.
In absolute numbers, the harm from weed is increasing as more people use it. As a rate, it’s a rounding error compared to alcohol.
For instance[1]:
“According to the 2022 Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 29.5 million people ages 12 and older (10.5% in this age group) had AUD in the past year.”
Compare that to[2]:
“The incidence rate of cannabis-induced psychosis increased steadily from 2.8 per 100 000 person years in 2006 to 6.1 per 100 000 person years in 2016.”
You’re orders of magnitude more likely to suffer harm from using alcohol than cannabis. I’m saying that as someone who enjoys the occasional drink but doesn’t use weed; I don’t have skin in the game.
> Those convicted of "possession or use" are nearly 100% plea down cases when the actual offense was sales, distribution, or manufacturing.
Not true at all - guess what charge you catch if you are caught smoking on a chairlift at a ski resort on Federal land or if you're on a hike in a National park.
I live in an area where private consumption is de facto legal.
A neighbor of mine would smoke weed constantly.
A young woman would come to his apartment every month or so. He would open the door, invite her in, and she would refuse. They would talk at the door for about five minutes while marijuana smoke drifted into the hall. Then she’d leave.
One day I asked she was his daughter, she said laughed and said, “No, I’m his parole officer!”
So it’s pretty legal for indoors purposes.
But - it’s not de facto legal in public. This is a big issue in public parks. Nobody wants their kids to share a park with potheads.
Same applies for alcohol and tobacco.
I’m fine with legalizing pot under the same conditions as alcohol - in your residence, buying from authorized dealers, high taxes, review boards, etc.
But just look at the high number of alcohol related crimes. Not just drunk driving, but public intoxication too.
Don’t expect legality pot to make the illegal uses go away. People will stop buy from illegal dealers, which will continue to be prosecuted (they don’t pay taxes).
> Nobody wants their kids to share a park with potheads
I see this as no different than alcohol or tobacco (which you also called out)
Growing up and not having a place to smoke, we'd always go to a park. But we'd go deep into the woods, etc. last thing we wanted to do was inconvenience someone else, leading to us getting caught.
Same is true of when we drank booze. No need to do it in front of a family.
I’m talking about parks I can’t take my family to because of how much drinking and pot smoking is going on - not kids smoking the middle of the forest.
The police give warnings, then only after a thousand warning give tickets.
But at the end of the day, these parks are not usable because of “partying.”
When I had kids I took pride in living in a lower income neighborhood. I didn’t want to be part of “white flight.”
But park problem went from being a nuisance to a big problem when COVID hit. Parks were one of the only places kids could go.
Now the kids are older I’m looking forward to leaving the soulless suburbs where all houses look the same.
But public drinking and drug use made the public spaces in lower income neighborhoods unusable.
Legalizing pot won’t help or hurt at all. But some people with convictions for possession deserve to have a light and temporary black mark on their record.
Readit News
As a gesture, this seems fine. But the continued presence of cannabis on Schedule I makes an absolute mockery out of our entire code of laws.
[0]: https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/weighing-impa...
Edit: major caveat, all the data harvesting and background check firms generally do not proactively purge their data sets as they’re supposed to. It’s your obligation to follow up with every single one of them individually, and there are a whole lot of them, they operate under the radar, and it’s hard to contact them. Finally it’s impossible to verify they actually did.
Expungement is a judicial remedy that is rarely granted by the court and cannot be granted within the Department of Justice or by the President.
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/frequently-asked-questions
Sounds like an opportunity for someone to set up a service which does. Do the verification I mean. :)
if they 'are supposed to' then it sounds like a potential civil liability if they have not done what they were supposed to do.
>It’s your obligation to follow up with every single one of them individually
or a lawyer could find some firms that did not do as they were supposed to, and some people that would have standing to sue, and ka-ching? This of course depends if my understand of "are supposed to" is correct.
If anything it'll help some folks to have a their records cleaned up.
[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/bidens-marijuana-pardons-won...
But the quoted statistic is confusing. Under what specifics would 300 people = 0.5% of the total prison population? As I understand it, the total prison population of the USA is over 1 million, and the subset designated 'federal prisoners' is, by itself, over 200,000.
> "If the recommendation is approved, marijuana would no longer be listed as a dangerous substance like heroin or LSD and it would reduce or potentially eliminate criminal penalties for possession. The decision rests with the DEA, which has rarely, if ever, rejected a rescheduling recommendation from HHS."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthoban/2023/10/10/schedule...
The president only has the power to pardon people convicted or accused of violating federal law and prosecuted in federal court.
The problem is that nearly all people arrested for simple possession of marijuana aren't charged under federal law nor prosecuted in federal court. They are charged under state law that similarly outlaws marijuana possession and prosecuted in state court. The president does not have the power to pardon convictions and punishment in state court.
I can't quite tell if this applies to military convictions. That would be the other area where the Federal government takes the time to prosecute something as minor as mere possession or use.
Another interesting question: does this actually pardon, or is it more like an open call for applications? It looks to me like you'd want to get that pardon certificate from the WH Pardon lawyer well before the next election.
Cannabis has been legal in DC for 8 years. See Initiative 71.
What other places outside of DC does federal law apply to?
(without the need for it to be interstate or some other such clause that is normally required for federal statutes to apply)
Can the president pardon crimes on reservations?
According to the report that preceded this action, more than 75% of all federal possession convictions were prosecuted in Arizona. Apparently it was just a rogue jurisdiction.
There are a number of totally bonkers details scattered around this report. https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/weighing-impa...
No, because it would still violate the UCMJ. The UCMJ would have to change.
However, it still doesn't solve the overarching issue of draconian drug laws.
He worked as a mover and moved someone onto a military base (in a decriminalized state). He forgot he had his weed in his jacket pocket when they got searched entering the base. Didn't get jail, but did get probation and a record of it.
The president can pardon any offense against the united states except impeachment. State offenses have always been left to governors to pardon but states are what make the united states and as such state offenses while violating only state law, they are an offense against a state that is part of the union and affect a citizen of the union, as such the president has ulitmate power to pardon.
This is similar to how state legal dispute or prosecution can ultimately be decided by the supreme court of the united states. It does not stop at the state's supreme court.
If trump gets elected next year for example, he can pardon himself of his upcoming likely conviction in georgia. Else you have a situation where in 2028 as soon as he leaves office he becomes a wanted criminal.
Presidents know that pardoning a stare criminal is overriding state law and alienating voters from that state and risking rifts in the union.
I believe the president supersedes state governors in every power they have except things like appointments and firings at the state level.
> Does the President have authority to grant clemency for a state conviction? No. The President’s clemency power is conferred by Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which provides: “The President . . . shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Thus, the President’s authority to grant clemency is limited to federal offenses
Deleted Comment
This pardon is for the entire United States, at least at the federal level. I don’t think kids sitting in a county jail for brining a joint to school in west Texas are going anywhere, though!
The first is https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-title21/html..., which covers the whole country.
The next two are DC specific.
And the last is specific to possession on federal properties.
So no, the headline is not overselling the implications. If you simply possessed marijuana and were convicted under federal law, your case is going to be pardoned.
Our constitution does not define the breadth and depth of emergency powers and it would be up for both congress and SCOTUS to decide that the president can’t do that.
I would hope that a president would just say fuck it and try this though. As much as I want things to be done “the right way”, I value lives of folks more than my neurodivergent desire to have things done neatly.
What next? Send in the army?
No, he can't.
> Our constitution does not define the breadth and depth of emergency powers
In our system, federal powers not defined in the Constitution do not exist.
No state or federal court is likely to respect or uphold such an abuse of power as long as US democracy remains intact … and while US democracy is very much in jeopardy right now, it won’t vanish before the next president takes over - Biden will follow the rules of the democratic system.
Oh it will have a huge effect politically. Biden can talk about how he is compassionate and fighting the injustice of federal marijuana crimes.
It's perfectly politically. Zero cost, and lots of benefit.
Dead Comment
However, nothing stops the same from happening to someone tomorrow. The past several administrations have been relying too heavily on executive fiat for the optics.
The DEA needs to reschedule it. Anything else is at best a band-aid, if not simple lip service to buy votes.
Obviously it’s intentional that it’s hard to pass things, and legitimately controversial things should be difficult to pass (and shouldn’t happen by executive fiat), but there are 2nd and 3rd order interests overriding what should be the 1st order interest of effective legislation.
Among these 2nd/3rd order interests: not looking bad to your party, making the other party look bad to their constituents, not upsetting some specific demagogues, not losing personal or party power at all costs, winning dunks in social media, looking good for the camera, ensuring that no third party could emerge, ensuring that if the other party gains power that they are incapable of exercising it, etc
Rumor has it that is in the works, but the fact that it has taken so long starts and ends with the executive office.
That said, Congress decriminalizing it entirely is definitely something that is going to take too long, and will also be entirely the fault of Congress.
The DEA needs to have this authority rescinded. They clearly cannot be trusted with it, and they have no impetus to remove historically misclassified drugs off the list, as it would reduce their overall budget.
It's the federal version of the Siebert strategy and it's completely injust.
If that's their logic then someone there can't do math. Between fentanyl, other opioids, and meth they have plenty to do.
I hope this pardon doesn’t dilute the will for more substantive drug policy reform.
Yeah sure, I agree with you that proclamations and executive orders are inherently vulnerable to the whims of whomever happens to hold the office and have no place in a democracy.
But the legislative branch, as it currently operates, is not much different. In practice it results in huge pendulum swings and deadlocks, making every 2 years (because midterms) a nail biting event for the populous because hard fought rights and legislation can be undone in the blink of an eye.
As someone who grew up in a coalition country, it’s saddening to see how people around me here in the US are constantly in a state of anxiety, filled with despair like someone who’s awaiting the return of an abusive spouse from work, wondering what will happen this time.
If we somehow could get rid of the FPTP system in our legislative system, then we can rid ourselves from the two party system. Not only will this significantly lessen things like gerrymandering, and the power of lobbying, but it would force parties to form a coalition because it’s less likely that one single party holds the majority of seats.
Parties would have to actually debate each other and try to convince each other, make concessions on all sides, in order to form a coalition.
The result of this is a more steady course in government policy, with sweeping pendulum swings being rarer and the changes being made being more nuanced.
Subsequently the citizenry doesn’t have to be on high alert 24/7 and the country can function more like a modern democracy.
And next thing in the agenda would be judicial reform.
Until then, both the legislative branch and the executive branch will subject us to whims and other pendulum swings.
Getting the DEA to reschedule it would involve more time and more influence than direct power.
That said, I think he should do both, AND that issuing this pardon may double as a good way of influencing the DEA.
If there is a single negative consequence from this pardon, some sort of Willy Horton moment for Biden, it will definitely derail the path to decriminalization and strengthen the resolve of the opposition.
I support pardons for miscarriages of the procedures of justice, not for freeing incarcerated people for actions that are still considered crimes. I guess "hooray, our team won today" is what I am supposed to be saying; time will show us the good or bad of having chosen the shortcut.
But ideally we have the solution on two fronts. The DEA should still reschedule it. But Congress should also seriously implement a law decriminalizing it.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/dariosabaghi/2023/07/31/dea-hea...
Deleted Comment
Another thought on the subject is how many small charges were simply because the police were fairly sure the defendant was up to some other crime, but were unable to make a court case over it (due to difficulty of evidence etc)? It may be that it was hard to prove the accused was doing X, but the bag of weed in their pocket was undeniable...
Just musings don't get too aflame over them...
[0]: https://www.newsweek.com/americas-heaviest-drinkers-consume-...
For the vast majority of drug users that are not addicted, this is obvious.
And for the addicts, criminalization is the last thing they need. Deterrence might prevent a few people from getting addicted, but not many. A lot of drug addiction is downstream of homelessness and mental health issues meaning the illegality is a very weak deterrent for the most vulnerable.
If we pushed even half of the money spent policing the war on drugs into homelessness support, mental health services, and addiction counseling and harm minimization like needle exchanges, we’d see a huge reduction in harm.
The current regime is not really interested in harm reduction; there is no effort to compare interventions based on objective harm metrics. Instead non-harm metrics like arrest rates and usage are chased. The policies start from Puritanism and historical racism and justify themselves claiming to care about harm after the fact.
To your second point… I think the racial discrimination baked into the history of drug enforcement should steer us away from giving police more excuses to incarcerate on their discretion. But even ignoring that, I don’t think we should support “we knew but could not provide evidence to prove guilt”, the justice system requires evidence for a reason.
This point seems plausible, are there any sources that might prove it?
Also your point about racial discrimination might be a good utilitarian argument for it's better to let those racially discriminated against free alongside some folks who were also upto other crimes... The replies have definitely given me more food for thought.
>For the vast majority of drug users that are not addicted, this is obvious.
I'm pretty sure a couple decades of effectively legalized oxycodone and hydrocodone use shows this view is not correct.
And how about shifting the discussion from prohibition and control of use to the democatization of healthcare access for people to heal from addiction, if we are so interested in the welfare of addicts at this point?
Deleted Comment
"Illegal but not criminal" for a drug just means a very clumsily implemented tax, if you want to do that, it would strictly be better to just do a tax.
> Another thought on the subject is how many small charges were simply because the police were fairly sure the defendant was up to some other crime, but were unable to make a court case over it (due to difficulty of evidence etc)? It may be that it was hard to prove the accused was doing X, but the bag of weed in their pocket was undeniable...
Eliminating crimes whose main use is as an end-run around probable cause (for arrest) and proof beyond a reasonable doubt (for conviction) on other crimes (and thus, which exist to be selectively used to end-run due process) is an unqualified good thing.
Then don't prosecute them. It's supposed to be hard to convict people.
That is an excellent argument in favor of legalization, not one against. What you're describing is selective enforcement and prosecution, and the use of it as a tool to arrest and convict someone because they can't be proven to have committed some other crime.
Illegal means that we don't want people to help, it means we don't want them to do something between don't like it.
Otherwise it doesn't make sense that the result is jail as jail is for punishment (it shouldn't) and not for rehabilitation.
Yes, the harm done to addicts will probably increase. There's always trade offs. I think people on the pro-legalization side are not doing enough to address this.
One of the problems with public discourse is that each side doesn't want to give an inch to the other side. I think a lot of people who support legalization of cannabis kinda know that harms to addicts might increase, but they're afraid that if they mention that then that will just give a talking point to the prohibitionists.
Both sides are guilty of misusing or ignoring facts and concerns that don't benefit their preferred take on the issue. However, it seems to me the prohibitionists are far more egregious when it comes making bad arguments.
Your point being?
Some will say "It should be high" but in the realworld we need a pragmatic approach that balances difficulty of proof vs innocent people incarcerated. It's my assertion that the only system which has 0 chance of false positives is the one which incarcerates no one. So it's about finding a good minima / balance.
I am absolutely thrilled with this blanket pardon.
Rephrasing the statement slightly, like:
> I am pardoning additional individuals who may continue to experience the unnecessary collateral consequences of a conviction for simple possession of beer, attempted simple possession of beer, or use of beer.
and it sounds utterly obvious, and ludicrous that it ever would have been an issue in the first place. I love a good stout or porter, and I can walk into just about any grocery store, flash my ID, hand over some cash, and walk out with a bottle of drugs that's caused far more societal harm than cannabis ever did. That I can drink a beer in public and no one bats an eye, while my neighbors could smoke a joint in their own house and go to jail for it, is insanity.
Good on you, Mr. President, for making life better for a whole lot of Americans.
It needs to be formally acknowledged as such, and further as fundamentally unconstitutional, but these kinds of victories take time. At least that so-called "War" is destroying fewer lives now.
It goes against the spirit of it but not the word of it.
Dead Comment
I think temporary society-scale prohibition when drug use becomes a widespread societal ill is good policy. Afterward, individual mandatory punishment/rehab for those who abuse drugs/alcohol and harm themselves and others should be the norm.
The law could say "nobody shall wear a red tshirt", and I think it would then be morally okay to arrest and punish anyone who continues to wear red tshirts.
Anyone not okay with the red tshirt law can go get the law changed through the usual democratic process. But if they just ignore the law and wear a red tshirt anyway, then punish them.
California legalized weed, people who wanted to use it started admitting that they use it, and... that's about it. Nothing bad happened. If anything, I know people who switched from alcohol to weed in the spirit of harm reduction, and they seem to be better for it.
If alcohol was not already widely (ab)used in a county would they be wrong to prohibit it?
(Note not meant in any form of malice, intended as probing questions for discussion)
There's a subtle but important distinction between
> Alcohol is allowed, so cannabis should be allowed.
and
> Alcohol is not illegal, so cannabis should not be illegal.
Our legal system is a default-allow denylist: unless a law says you can't do something, you can. The government doesn't grant permission. It removes it.
So because the government hasn't made the case that we should ban alcohol, I think it's on them to prove that cannabis is somehow worse to justify its banning.
Yes, I think this indisputably so. However, the more widely cannabis is used the greater the harms seem to be.
For instance[1]:
“According to the 2022 Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 29.5 million people ages 12 and older (10.5% in this age group) had AUD in the past year.”
Compare that to[2]:
“The incidence rate of cannabis-induced psychosis increased steadily from 2.8 per 100 000 person years in 2006 to 6.1 per 100 000 person years in 2016.”
You’re orders of magnitude more likely to suffer harm from using alcohol than cannabis. I’m saying that as someone who enjoys the occasional drink but doesn’t use weed; I don’t have skin in the game.
[1] https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-to...
[2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31839011/
Dead Comment
Those convicted of "possession or use" are nearly 100% plea down cases when the actual offense was sales, distribution, or manufacturing.
Not true at all - guess what charge you catch if you are caught smoking on a chairlift at a ski resort on Federal land or if you're on a hike in a National park.
Thousands of people every year;
https://www.nydailynews.com/2013/09/16/marijuana-busts-on-fe...
A neighbor of mine would smoke weed constantly.
A young woman would come to his apartment every month or so. He would open the door, invite her in, and she would refuse. They would talk at the door for about five minutes while marijuana smoke drifted into the hall. Then she’d leave.
One day I asked she was his daughter, she said laughed and said, “No, I’m his parole officer!”
So it’s pretty legal for indoors purposes.
But - it’s not de facto legal in public. This is a big issue in public parks. Nobody wants their kids to share a park with potheads.
Same applies for alcohol and tobacco.
I’m fine with legalizing pot under the same conditions as alcohol - in your residence, buying from authorized dealers, high taxes, review boards, etc.
But just look at the high number of alcohol related crimes. Not just drunk driving, but public intoxication too.
Don’t expect legality pot to make the illegal uses go away. People will stop buy from illegal dealers, which will continue to be prosecuted (they don’t pay taxes).
It won’t do much good or harm.
I see this as no different than alcohol or tobacco (which you also called out)
Growing up and not having a place to smoke, we'd always go to a park. But we'd go deep into the woods, etc. last thing we wanted to do was inconvenience someone else, leading to us getting caught.
Same is true of when we drank booze. No need to do it in front of a family.
The police give warnings, then only after a thousand warning give tickets.
But at the end of the day, these parks are not usable because of “partying.”
When I had kids I took pride in living in a lower income neighborhood. I didn’t want to be part of “white flight.”
But park problem went from being a nuisance to a big problem when COVID hit. Parks were one of the only places kids could go.
Now the kids are older I’m looking forward to leaving the soulless suburbs where all houses look the same.
But public drinking and drug use made the public spaces in lower income neighborhoods unusable.
Legalizing pot won’t help or hurt at all. But some people with convictions for possession deserve to have a light and temporary black mark on their record.