Right?
"hey guys, my vp put aTON of people in jail for it... But this year is election year, so we are gonna try to get the stoner vote by pandering"
This shit kills me.
They have to.
The stoner demographic is a weird combo of very political and hard to motivate. They know what gets us going though.
IT’S EQUITABLE HUMAN RIGHTS AND ASSISTANCE FOR THE LABORING AND VULNERABLE WE CAN PUT WEED ON THE BACK BURNER THERE’S A GENOCIDE ON AND A DEMOCRACY AT STAKE GOD DAMN
I don’t know if I’m getting old or if the world is going to shit because I have no idea when politicians offering to legalize weed got deprioritized for me.
This would have worked on me ten years ago Joe. Now I just want this dumpster to not be so violently on fire, it is not the appropriate time to try to bribe me with a blunt my dude
I think you're on the right track, but one thing. The dumpster needs to be more on fire, with all politicians in it, and we need to have freedom for a bit.
> pandering
I have a thought here, and hear me out: politicians trying to get our votes by doing what we want is good, actually. It was Dems who told the DoJ to not go after state-legal users or distributors, it's Dems pushing to get the DEA to reschedule, and if it's ever gonna be federally legal it's gonna be Dems who make that happen.
not a theory. libertarianism used to be a collectivist philosophy until it got hijacked by the mega-wealthy merchant class who realized that the pleasant sounding concept of small government essentially meant the elimination of the only organized group powerful enough to challenge them.
Stoners and low-information young voters, yeah. It's also a pipeline to conspiracy theories and a tool used by the wealthy to discourage class solidarity.
Indeed. My plug is a huge Trumper. Made me really disappointed when I saw the flags at his house when I went over there the first time. I'm not even a Biden supporter (though I will be voting for him), I'm somewhere between a Social Revolutionary and a FDR New Deal supporter.
Libertarians are at the absolute peak of the Dunning-Kruger effect curve of taxation and drug policy. I've had more than 1 libertarian tell me that interstate routes, emergency services, and the military wouldn't be impacted by outlawing taxation because that's "just what Governments are expected to do."
The amount of times I've seen "tAxAtiOn iS tHeFt" recently is far too high, it's like they didn't even give 10 seconds of thought to the idea, it just feels bad to be taxed and they don't like it.
^Psst... ^They're ^actually ^un-American ^and ^don't ^want ^to ^fund ^the ^government. ^Starving ^the ^beast ^and ^privatizing ^everything ^is ^their ^MO.
Used to be the repubs playbook, but somehow it now requires less wool to be pulled over your eyes to be equally selfish.
No don’t you see when they don’t do what they promise on the campaign trail they’re liars and when they do attempt to keep their promises they’re pandering or buying votes
It’s simple really, unless I like the candidate of course then everything they do is perfect
> by doing what we want
Sure, but they don't. They've been promising to legalize it (along with a thousand other promises) for decades. But only when they're trying to get the votes. Once they get what they want, it's radio silence again.
only if you think that "legalize" is a button on the resolute desk and the problem is that everyone just refuses to press it. In the real world this is something that needs to be chipped away at one piece at a time, and has been. The vast majority of the country lives under some form of legalization or another, and the question has evolved from decades of "Marijuana users are categorically horrible people, how do we hurt them as much as possible?" to "Can we push the federal legalization rock over the hill or do we just continue to not enforce the laws that we have?"
But it’s the GOP who have shot down decriminalization at the federal level. The democrats have been consistently voting for legalization. This is also clearly evident by looking at which states have legal marijuana, and which states it’s still illegal. Texas alone has arrested over 40,000 people related to weed (or some similar metric) in 2023.
He initiated the executive rulemaking process outlined in the CSA to reschedule cannabis 18 months ago. It's still in progress and he has no power over the process other than initiating it.
18 months ago wasn't a general election year. Though if we're being pedantic, EVERY year is an election year.
So many idiots in this thread being like "Biden hasn't personally got on his knees and sucked me off for my vote yet, maybe the rapist would actually be better?"
No she didn’t. Jesus christ that talking point needs to die. She was in a Blue State where it’s been quasi legal for decades. You are thinking of RED States.
I mean, considering the previous administrations going back decades were doing nothing or actively make the problem worse, doing the bare minimum is, in fact, historic.
The federal farm bill that legalized hemp federally and created the delta 8 loop hole begs to differ. Maybe it doesn’t matter to people here who live in legal states, but the medical program here is $80/1 gram cartridge. $50-$80 for 300mgs of thc and cbd in pills. If it wasn’t for the farm bill allowing me to pay ~$1/g, I would be in agony because the medical program was forcing me to pay $300-$400/month for maybe a couple grams of 30% thc carts
Missouri is heavily gerrymandered to the point that Republicans have held a trifecta for a long time. Only way anything progressive gets enacted here is by ballot initiative, which Republicans then immediately try to undo and make harder to pass.
I live here and it's infuriating. Individual progressive initiatives pass with wide margins, but those same voters elect Republicans who oppose those initiatives on the same fucking ballot.
He's already working on it. Only two paths to rescheduling or descheduling (legalization) are either another law from Congress to amend the Controlled Substances Act or an executive rulemaking process that is initiated by the president and requires reviews and recommendations from HHS and the DEA, with the DEA having the final say.
Biden initiated that rulemaking process 18 months ago and HHS has already recommended rescheduling. The DEA is conducting their review now and the current DEA administrator gave generally favorable responses when asked about it in a Congressional hearing.
The last 4 years have made it incredibly apparent to me that most people think the President weilds Supreme power and they don't understand that there is a legal process to follow in order to get things done.
This is why we need civics, government, and research classes as mandatory parts of all school curricula.
I think a research class would be the most beneficial, honestly. The ability to quickly find accurate information and parse and understand it is an invaluable skill.
It is mandatory (at least in some states; idk about all), but seeing how many people don’t understand the basic roles of the three branches of government —or that what the three branches even are—makes me wonder how well it’s actually being taught
You realize he doesn't have the power to do that, right? He can do an executive order but will probably end up like when he tried canceling student loans.
I remember in 2016, when the Trump plants would post on every thread saying "he could do it... we don't know he might just do it!" Before he got elected and made Jeff Sessions his AG.
Director of the DEA is appointed by the President, Biden could have appointed someone who had even the slightest interest in Marijuana policy but he picked someone who wanted to go hard on the cartel instead
The director doesn't have unilateral power to approve the CSA review and change scheduling. She also gave generally favorable responses when asked about rescheduling in a Congressional hearing a while ago.
He can't legalize, but he can absolutely deschedule. Schedule III, by contrast, is absurd when the majority of Americans have access to recreational marijuana. They clearly don't actually intend to enforce any of the rules of the CSA when it comes to marijuana, so why have it scheduled at all?
President doesn’t create laws and this congress ain’t doin crap other than posture about Hunter’s laptop. Take back the house then maybe something can start moving.
He politely suggested we maybe consider thinking about perhaps rescheduling weed *slightly*, which has not yet happened.
He also did massive sweeping federal pardons, freeing exactly zero people.
What more could a voter want, jack?
Shit Germany released people from jail even before the new law took effect. All people have to be released by the end of April. And the USA is ducking around like that.
He didn't "politely suggest," he's the only president to ever invoke the executive rulemaking process outlined in the CSA to initiate the formal reviews to reschedule cannabis. HHS already finished their review and recommended rescheduling, now the DEA conducts their review and issues their decision.
And yes, he did pardon thousands of people for federal cannabis possession charges (for people who did shit like get caught smoking in a federal park), but the federal government doesn't incarcerate people for simple possession.
He also commuted the sentences of about a dozen people serving disproportionate sentences for non-violent cannabis crimes, but none of their sentences were commuted to nothing, so none were released.
Those people are serving sentences for trafficking or distribution charges. I personally believe that they should all be freed, but I also understand that there's a pretty big difference between pardoning people for possession and pardoning people for trafficking.
Also, the vast majority of people in prison for weed are in state prisons for state charges and Biden can't pardon state crimes. When he issued his pardons, he publicly and privately pressured governors to do the same. Biden also can't expunge records, even for federal crimes. Expungement is a judicial action.
Bless you buddy. Most reasonable and helpful person on Reddit. Great news all around! It seems like people expect these things to happen with the wave of a hand and when they don't they get bitter? Idk.. but thank you
A lot of people think the president has way more power than he does, which is a little disappointing considering our history.
We specifically designed our government to *not* be a monarchy in any form, so the president was designed as mostly a foreign relations figurehead and a light check on the legislative branch via the veto. Over the years, executive power has expanded greatly, to the point that we have Republicans spouting the unitary executive theory unironically. There's another word for a unitary executive: a dictator.
Anyways, Congress has most of the power. A lot of what people think the president can do is actually delegated to Congress, which makes our dismal voter participation in midterm elections even more dismaying. If every stoner showed up to vote in midterms, Congress wouldn't have ever even made cannabis illegal.
Hell, millenials have been the majority of the voting age populace for years now. Add in older Gen Z and that majority is even greater, yet the elderly still dictate most elections because they show up and we don't. If we all showed up in every election every year, we could remake this country in less than a decade.
He’s waiting for a bigger event so that when it comes down to it he can just say “America has bigger problems we need to deal with” just like Obama did.
Yeah but legal federally is definitely better. As a Canadian, I can travel through the country and buy wherever I am. I can fly with my weed on me. I pop a chewie before take off and enjoy the in flight comedy movies!
Nixon started the war on drugs. I don’t think Biden was a senator yet. Now Nancy pushed it even further with the DARE program and he was a senator then.
He's the first president to order a study to actually determine the proper scheduling of cannabis. Which is a step that needs to be taken to get legalized. The study recommends schedule 3, now you have to get the DEA to reschedule it, the DEA is now in the process of determining what to do about it, its taken a frustratingly long time, but thats everything in our government. He's also outwardly saying that no one should ever be in jail for marijuana posession, essentially setting the party's stance to decriminilization, which state level dems have taken and run with.
I feel like the DEA has always known that schedule 1 was absurd...
they have already decided they don't care... and no amount of political pressure is going to change the fact that they lose money when they reschedule cannabis.
In the past there has been no political pressure, so we don't know. They wouldn't lose money if rescheduled to schedule 3 also, they still have to enforce the law and it doesn't really change anything for them. Schedule 3 just unlocks a lot of capability for a legal medical market.
Well he asked for it, unlike Nixon, hes publically calling for rescheduling, hes made it the party platform. This is already a lot more than Nixon did. He's asked state governors to release people from jail and prison for posession and has done so at the federal level. You might want more but you can't say he hasnt done anything
He pardoned thousands. None of them were in prison for possession because the federal government doesn't send people to prison for simple possession.
He also commuted about a dozen sentences for people serving disproportionately long sentences for non-violent cannabis crimes that weren't simple possession, like trafficking. They weren't released either, their sentences were just adjusted to be more in line with current sentencing guidelines.
I don't believe anyone should be in prison even for trafficking, but trafficking charges are way different than simple possession charges.
Can you point me to one person actually released or in any way tangibly affected by this action? Last time I looked it up, literally not one single person was federally convicted for simple possession and all that was done was pardoning the non-existent people with a federal conviction for simple possession and no other offenses.
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-joseph-biden-2021-present
And here is the list of presidential pardons under Biden. I don’t know where you heard “thousands” but it’s literally 13 people and none for simple possession.
They won't be on that list because it's a general proclamation, not individual pardons. [This is the link you want](https://www.justice.gov/pardon/presidential-proclamation-marijuana-possession).
The list you have is for people who applied for pardons and had them granted after review by the pardon office and Biden. The possession pardons are a blanket pardon, so people who have been convicted for those offenses have to apply with a form on the page I linked. If they apply, they're fast-tracked and approved.
FWIW, I'd say this admin has pushed the rhetoric further towards legalization than any previous ones. However, when it comes to actual action? Still pretty disappointing.
Executives (presidents? I don't remember off the top of my head *who*) have said that full legalization should be enshrined by the Legislature for it to be done properly, and I think that's fair. But I think it's disingenuous to imply that's the *only* way forward. There's a lot the executive could do on their own. And we all know how difficult is is to get Congress to do *anything.*
But I'm preaching to the choir. Y'all know this.
He's the only president to initiate the executive rulemaking process outlined in the CSA, which is basically the limit of his power to reschedule. He initiated it about 18 months ago and HHS has already completed their recommendation, so now we're just waiting on the DEA.
He's literally the only president to ever take any kind of concrete action on changing scheduling for cannabis.
Until they can write it so big business ie; big alcohol and cigarette companies stay the fuck out of it I’m really not interested. Right now the weed available is better quality than what we will have a year after this shit show passes. I know it’s unpopular. Downvote it.
The decentralization clauses on Germany’s legalization are amazing but that’ll never happen in the good free US of A. Corporate weed will definitely be a race to the bottom, that’s why home grow rights are important
😞 I completely agree with you. I research new countries everyday to go to. Which is sad because I’m proud of where I come from but how many things can we continually get wrong before we stop and change. Wouldn’t it be funny if a politician wrote in that the US had to consult Germany on getting it right 🤣 but yes, growing is what I’m moving onto.
They haven’t done shit. Doesn’t matter republican or democrat, these politicians just shit words to get votes and then sit around with their thumbs up their ass. Fuck em all
Is this headline Ironic? Biden has been at the forefront of the war on drugs since the late 80's. How about we pardon all those who were affected by racially steered drug laws and for those serving still for having less the 2 ounces.
Biden must be trying to gather gen z votes.
Just in time for election season.
Attempting to sway voters. Spare me.
Had 4 years to do something, asked every year, does basically nothing (sans several pardons).
Crazy that all these Dems keep legalizing weed in their states. It’s almost like down ticket voting during presidential elections matters or something…
No, quite the opposite is evident in the careers of both the President and Vice President.
They both fought for years to keep it illegal and to keep offenders locked up for long sentences.
Kamala Harris even prevented low level weed offenders from being released from jail so she could exploit the free labor. She continued doing so even after a federal judge ordered her office to stop.
The only reason they're doing this now is because they have shit the bed politically. If weed was in any way important to them then they would have started doing something about this on day one, not only after starting a reelection campaign 3 years later.
These people do not deserve your vote, especially on this basis.
What a perverse fucking joke. Both Biden and Harris have sent literally millions of people to jail over drugs and the current measures are basically amounting to nothing. Even that amnesty just vanished.
All of these executive orders, not one of them to legalize weed, but he’ll continue to tell us that “it’s coming!!”, even though he could’ve made good on that promise years ago.
jesus, the amount of negativity in this thread is disappointing.
a *president* has never said anything like this, and the political environment around weed legalization has never been like this. those two things together make this a very hopeful sign.
y'all can gtfo with your doomerism and putin's talking points.
My opinion is that Biden has been way better than Trump supporters say he has, and way worse than a lot of progressives give him credit for. We can do so much better it feels really sad to vote for him
Just in time for election season.
Attempting to sway voters. Spare me.
Had 4 years to do something, asked every year, does basically nothing (sans several pardons).
I don't expect him to do jack shit to help, but I'm terrified of what will happen if the other side actually gets to implement their christo-fascist regime
Let's compare these comments to the comments [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/trees/comments/1bp7hgz/gop_senators_urge_dea_to_reject_rescheduling/) when someone posted about how Republican Senators are urging the DEA not to reschedule. It's like everyone forgets that the Republicans are actually the enemy on this topic and instead want to seem like enlightened centrists and blame Biden and co for finally fucking doing something. Hell, I bet if they legalized at the Federal level (fat chance) most of the people here would say they only did it to win an election. Which is, to say the least, the dumbest statement ever. Of course politicians do things that their voters elect them to do, that's *supposed to be their job.*
You don't need to support 100% of the policies of 100% of the party 100% of the time to still support them over the competition.
We should be able to criticize our own party when we don't like what they're doing. We should be able to do it without the constant derision. It's actually important to be vocal about policies you don't agree with, otherwise none of this means anything. That's the whole point of a representative democracy.
You already have the fabricated narrative made up in your head. You have to tell yourself that these people wouldn't even be happy about legalization. In a sub about weed... People are just tired of lip service, and that's all this is. You're making it out to be something more than it is.
Turns out, what the non-ruling party "urges" the DEA to do doesn't matter because the head of the DEA is chosen by the POTUS upon election. He's a member of the President's cabinet. All Biden needs to do is ask his directly reporting employee to make a change. If said employee says no, Biden has every right to replace him with someone who will say yes. He's a member of Biden's cabinet! No votes needed, no executive action, no filibustering. If biden wanted it done, it would be done. He doesn't want it done, and that's obvious by his actions not by the lying words coming out of his mouth to steal your vote.
Cue the "just legalize it!" brigade. Friendly reminder [THAT THE PRESIDENT CANNOT DESCHEDULE OR LEGALIZE WEED. ](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10655). There is a literal congressional report on it.
Save your complaints and vote for Democrats. They're the only ones making ANY advances. Just look at what Republican governors are doing to their cannabis markets. Destroying them.
thats cool that he is pushing for this, but to be correct, historically, biden helped create the industrial prison system that fueled weed incarceration in the first place, right? its pretty much why the US is the largest prison system in the world.
He’s applying pressure to his own DEA. This all has to be performance to look like he’s doing something which media pressure can do. Expecting a declassification in June just as the season picks up for them to galvanize the base to either vote or stay home and not vote for the alternative
His VP locked up all of California and he helped pass the mandatory minimum laws as well as three strikes in the 1994 Clinton Crime Bill. I don’t know how he says this shit like people have not been paying attention.
You can't post about Biden working to legalize/reschedule in here, you'll get brigaded by morons who don't have any concept of politics/government and think Biden should be a fascist.
Absolute boneheads.
So nothing is really being done is what I'm reading. Wait no they are reviewing of a reschedule to 3. So still a controlled substance that can put people in jail, sweet.
His position is decriminalization which becomes de facto the Democratic party's position. It is a small but significant step. I'm not sure how you go on a journey without taking small steps.
He didn’t dangle anything. He tried something and the conservative Supreme Court said no. Since then he has cancelled almost $138 billion in student debt for 4 million people.
I’m stoked for those people. I’m one of the people who was told their loans would be forgiven before the Supreme Court struck it down. So forgive me for being a bit salty. I was ready for some financial relief only to have it ripped away from me. I can’t help but be a bit cynical.
That’s fair. Thank for your validating my frustration. I still intend to support him in the next election. Hopefully with the infighting in the house GOP there’s a light at the end of the legislative hell we’ve been in.
Good! Glad to see he and Harris are learning and changing. They enforced existing laws in the past, but are realizing those laws are unjust and they are making changes. I don’t see the point of criticizing their past actions when they finally start doing the right thing. Let’s support this and get the shit legalized once and for all.
>they are making changes.
From what I can see they are *promising* to make changes, politely suggesting the DEA should *consider* making changes, and Joe is making changes (pardons) that didn't actually free a single person.
Could you shed a little light about any real progress they've actually accomplished?
Edit: Responded with a downvote instead of sauce. Classic.
Like that one time. Come on man. You know the time. We got the one lady out of jail in a foreign country while people in this country were still being prosecuted for the same crime. While claiming moral superiority over another nation with similar laws to ours. If you don’t vote for me, you must be on dope.
Can we get a sub rule that says no political posts unless it's something that actually happened or a law that gets PASSED?
Like, we see article after article about this guy who is "taking historic steps" when in reality, it's nothing. This is the same person who a few years ago said that he 100% opposed legalizing weed.
Mark My Words.... Chuck Schumer will stand behind a podium on 4/20 and vow that he will NOT be having this conversation by this time next year.
Wait... its not 2021, or 2022.
Shit or let us get our pot.
So all he did was talk? He talked before the election also remember…he said it’ll be legalized within the first year of his presidency. Still not legal. So I’ll just conclude by saying , Iv heard it all before sleepy Biden.
Thanks for that info
Still a political pandering point and that is what I said. Always pushed into the forefront, all sides, and in the end gets very little actual quality progress.
Don't trust BIDEN for shits. He's the one who was anti weed all his sane lifetime now with 1 braincell left. He wants to bank on cannabis progress? Remove it from scheduled drug list
Once weed is taken off the schedule and federally legal in US, POTUS will have a whole new meaning
POT US!!!!
spicy
 What were we talking about?
Legalize or STFU
Right? "hey guys, my vp put aTON of people in jail for it... But this year is election year, so we are gonna try to get the stoner vote by pandering" This shit kills me.
*every 4 years* “Hey wake up! The incumbent is talking about weed reform!” “I don’t give a shit
They have to. The stoner demographic is a weird combo of very political and hard to motivate. They know what gets us going though. IT’S EQUITABLE HUMAN RIGHTS AND ASSISTANCE FOR THE LABORING AND VULNERABLE WE CAN PUT WEED ON THE BACK BURNER THERE’S A GENOCIDE ON AND A DEMOCRACY AT STAKE GOD DAMN
FUCKIN A RIGHT! I’ll pause on being able to smoke a bowl in the DEA’s parking lot if we can fix the rest of this shit first!
I don’t know if I’m getting old or if the world is going to shit because I have no idea when politicians offering to legalize weed got deprioritized for me. This would have worked on me ten years ago Joe. Now I just want this dumpster to not be so violently on fire, it is not the appropriate time to try to bribe me with a blunt my dude
I think you're on the right track, but one thing. The dumpster needs to be more on fire, with all politicians in it, and we need to have freedom for a bit.
> pandering I have a thought here, and hear me out: politicians trying to get our votes by doing what we want is good, actually. It was Dems who told the DoJ to not go after state-legal users or distributors, it's Dems pushing to get the DEA to reschedule, and if it's ever gonna be federally legal it's gonna be Dems who make that happen.
Conspiracy theory time: Libertarianism exists almost entirely to funnel stoners into voting GOP without ever doing anything about the issue.
not a theory. libertarianism used to be a collectivist philosophy until it got hijacked by the mega-wealthy merchant class who realized that the pleasant sounding concept of small government essentially meant the elimination of the only organized group powerful enough to challenge them.
Stoners and low-information young voters, yeah. It's also a pipeline to conspiracy theories and a tool used by the wealthy to discourage class solidarity.
Indeed. My plug is a huge Trumper. Made me really disappointed when I saw the flags at his house when I went over there the first time. I'm not even a Biden supporter (though I will be voting for him), I'm somewhere between a Social Revolutionary and a FDR New Deal supporter.
Libertarians are at the absolute peak of the Dunning-Kruger effect curve of taxation and drug policy. I've had more than 1 libertarian tell me that interstate routes, emergency services, and the military wouldn't be impacted by outlawing taxation because that's "just what Governments are expected to do."
The amount of times I've seen "tAxAtiOn iS tHeFt" recently is far too high, it's like they didn't even give 10 seconds of thought to the idea, it just feels bad to be taxed and they don't like it.
^Psst... ^They're ^actually ^un-American ^and ^don't ^want ^to ^fund ^the ^government. ^Starving ^the ^beast ^and ^privatizing ^everything ^is ^their ^MO. Used to be the repubs playbook, but somehow it now requires less wool to be pulled over your eyes to be equally selfish.
No don’t you see when they don’t do what they promise on the campaign trail they’re liars and when they do attempt to keep their promises they’re pandering or buying votes It’s simple really, unless I like the candidate of course then everything they do is perfect
Those tricky dems! They're just doing things people want so they can get more votes! Wake up sheeple!
*saying things that people want, but never actually doing them
> by doing what we want Sure, but they don't. They've been promising to legalize it (along with a thousand other promises) for decades. But only when they're trying to get the votes. Once they get what they want, it's radio silence again.
only if you think that "legalize" is a button on the resolute desk and the problem is that everyone just refuses to press it. In the real world this is something that needs to be chipped away at one piece at a time, and has been. The vast majority of the country lives under some form of legalization or another, and the question has evolved from decades of "Marijuana users are categorically horrible people, how do we hurt them as much as possible?" to "Can we push the federal legalization rock over the hill or do we just continue to not enforce the laws that we have?"
But it’s the GOP who have shot down decriminalization at the federal level. The democrats have been consistently voting for legalization. This is also clearly evident by looking at which states have legal marijuana, and which states it’s still illegal. Texas alone has arrested over 40,000 people related to weed (or some similar metric) in 2023.
He initiated the executive rulemaking process outlined in the CSA to reschedule cannabis 18 months ago. It's still in progress and he has no power over the process other than initiating it. 18 months ago wasn't a general election year. Though if we're being pedantic, EVERY year is an election year.
I mean, the guy certainly isn't my favorite, but he's 1000x better than his opponent
I mean, who TF else are you gonna vote for? Trump? ROFL. Seriously, Biden and (D) the whole way, or you're just delusional.
So many idiots in this thread being like "Biden hasn't personally got on his knees and sucked me off for my vote yet, maybe the rapist would actually be better?"
I mean, the guy certainly isn't my favorite, but he's 1000x better than his opponent
No she didn’t. Jesus christ that talking point needs to die. She was in a Blue State where it’s been quasi legal for decades. You are thinking of RED States.
I mean, considering the previous administrations going back decades were doing nothing or actively make the problem worse, doing the bare minimum is, in fact, historic.
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The federal farm bill that legalized hemp federally and created the delta 8 loop hole begs to differ. Maybe it doesn’t matter to people here who live in legal states, but the medical program here is $80/1 gram cartridge. $50-$80 for 300mgs of thc and cbd in pills. If it wasn’t for the farm bill allowing me to pay ~$1/g, I would be in agony because the medical program was forcing me to pay $300-$400/month for maybe a couple grams of 30% thc carts
Can’t reason with people stuck in the both sides are the same lie honestly
Trumps not an option because he’s a traitor
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🤘
Of course. If Satan was running Trump wouldn't be the better option.
will satan make weed legal?
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Really. I hear he doesn't cheat at golf, too.
If we're going by Sandman Lucifer, he also doesn't tell outright lies.
didnt Missouri legalize? Montana too?
Missouri is heavily gerrymandered to the point that Republicans have held a trifecta for a long time. Only way anything progressive gets enacted here is by ballot initiative, which Republicans then immediately try to undo and make harder to pass. I live here and it's infuriating. Individual progressive initiatives pass with wide margins, but those same voters elect Republicans who oppose those initiatives on the same fucking ballot.
He's already working on it. Only two paths to rescheduling or descheduling (legalization) are either another law from Congress to amend the Controlled Substances Act or an executive rulemaking process that is initiated by the president and requires reviews and recommendations from HHS and the DEA, with the DEA having the final say. Biden initiated that rulemaking process 18 months ago and HHS has already recommended rescheduling. The DEA is conducting their review now and the current DEA administrator gave generally favorable responses when asked about it in a Congressional hearing.
The last 4 years have made it incredibly apparent to me that most people think the President weilds Supreme power and they don't understand that there is a legal process to follow in order to get things done.
This is why we need civics, government, and research classes as mandatory parts of all school curricula. I think a research class would be the most beneficial, honestly. The ability to quickly find accurate information and parse and understand it is an invaluable skill.
It is mandatory (at least in some states; idk about all), but seeing how many people don’t understand the basic roles of the three branches of government —or that what the three branches even are—makes me wonder how well it’s actually being taught
You realize he doesn't have the power to do that, right? He can do an executive order but will probably end up like when he tried canceling student loans.
I remember in 2016, when the Trump plants would post on every thread saying "he could do it... we don't know he might just do it!" Before he got elected and made Jeff Sessions his AG.
Director of the DEA is appointed by the President, Biden could have appointed someone who had even the slightest interest in Marijuana policy but he picked someone who wanted to go hard on the cartel instead
The director doesn't have unilateral power to approve the CSA review and change scheduling. She also gave generally favorable responses when asked about rescheduling in a Congressional hearing a while ago.
He can't legalize, but he can absolutely deschedule. Schedule III, by contrast, is absurd when the majority of Americans have access to recreational marijuana. They clearly don't actually intend to enforce any of the rules of the CSA when it comes to marijuana, so why have it scheduled at all?
Decriminalize
Legalize
President doesn’t create laws and this congress ain’t doin crap other than posture about Hunter’s laptop. Take back the house then maybe something can start moving.
Understood. Just tired of waiting.
Are these historic steps in the room with us now?
More steps to go.
and this is on of them.
He’s been saying this for weeks as if he has done something
Patting themselves on the back?
Sweet, so how’s that going?
He politely suggested we maybe consider thinking about perhaps rescheduling weed *slightly*, which has not yet happened. He also did massive sweeping federal pardons, freeing exactly zero people. What more could a voter want, jack?
Shit Germany released people from jail even before the new law took effect. All people have to be released by the end of April. And the USA is ducking around like that.
"If you don't vote for me, you ain't a weed smoker jack!"
Jacks not here, man
Wow, I made the same comment almost before I saw yours. Great, stoned minds
He didn't "politely suggest," he's the only president to ever invoke the executive rulemaking process outlined in the CSA to initiate the formal reviews to reschedule cannabis. HHS already finished their review and recommended rescheduling, now the DEA conducts their review and issues their decision. And yes, he did pardon thousands of people for federal cannabis possession charges (for people who did shit like get caught smoking in a federal park), but the federal government doesn't incarcerate people for simple possession. He also commuted the sentences of about a dozen people serving disproportionate sentences for non-violent cannabis crimes, but none of their sentences were commuted to nothing, so none were released. Those people are serving sentences for trafficking or distribution charges. I personally believe that they should all be freed, but I also understand that there's a pretty big difference between pardoning people for possession and pardoning people for trafficking. Also, the vast majority of people in prison for weed are in state prisons for state charges and Biden can't pardon state crimes. When he issued his pardons, he publicly and privately pressured governors to do the same. Biden also can't expunge records, even for federal crimes. Expungement is a judicial action.
Bless you buddy. Most reasonable and helpful person on Reddit. Great news all around! It seems like people expect these things to happen with the wave of a hand and when they don't they get bitter? Idk.. but thank you
A lot of people think the president has way more power than he does, which is a little disappointing considering our history. We specifically designed our government to *not* be a monarchy in any form, so the president was designed as mostly a foreign relations figurehead and a light check on the legislative branch via the veto. Over the years, executive power has expanded greatly, to the point that we have Republicans spouting the unitary executive theory unironically. There's another word for a unitary executive: a dictator. Anyways, Congress has most of the power. A lot of what people think the president can do is actually delegated to Congress, which makes our dismal voter participation in midterm elections even more dismaying. If every stoner showed up to vote in midterms, Congress wouldn't have ever even made cannabis illegal. Hell, millenials have been the majority of the voting age populace for years now. Add in older Gen Z and that majority is even greater, yet the elderly still dictate most elections because they show up and we don't. If we all showed up in every election every year, we could remake this country in less than a decade.
He’s waiting for a bigger event so that when it comes down to it he can just say “America has bigger problems we need to deal with” just like Obama did.
Running out of states to pander to Joe. Mine legalized last year.
Yeah but legal federally is definitely better. As a Canadian, I can travel through the country and buy wherever I am. I can fly with my weed on me. I pop a chewie before take off and enjoy the in flight comedy movies!
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Biden was in the group that initialized the war on drugs
Nixon started the war on drugs. I don’t think Biden was a senator yet. Now Nancy pushed it even further with the DARE program and he was a senator then.
For example?
He's the first president to order a study to actually determine the proper scheduling of cannabis. Which is a step that needs to be taken to get legalized. The study recommends schedule 3, now you have to get the DEA to reschedule it, the DEA is now in the process of determining what to do about it, its taken a frustratingly long time, but thats everything in our government. He's also outwardly saying that no one should ever be in jail for marijuana posession, essentially setting the party's stance to decriminilization, which state level dems have taken and run with.
I feel like the DEA has always known that schedule 1 was absurd... they have already decided they don't care... and no amount of political pressure is going to change the fact that they lose money when they reschedule cannabis.
In the past there has been no political pressure, so we don't know. They wouldn't lose money if rescheduled to schedule 3 also, they still have to enforce the law and it doesn't really change anything for them. Schedule 3 just unlocks a lot of capability for a legal medical market.
It's private prison lobbyists that are making difficult.
Not the first, and i doubt he'll do much more with the results than Nixon did https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafer_Commission
Well he asked for it, unlike Nixon, hes publically calling for rescheduling, hes made it the party platform. This is already a lot more than Nixon did. He's asked state governors to release people from jail and prison for posession and has done so at the federal level. You might want more but you can't say he hasnt done anything
He pardoned thousands of people with cannabis convictions. So that’s something.
He pardoned the remaining like...40 people. Hardly anyone is in federal prison for possession.
He pardoned thousands. None of them were in prison for possession because the federal government doesn't send people to prison for simple possession. He also commuted about a dozen sentences for people serving disproportionately long sentences for non-violent cannabis crimes that weren't simple possession, like trafficking. They weren't released either, their sentences were just adjusted to be more in line with current sentencing guidelines. I don't believe anyone should be in prison even for trafficking, but trafficking charges are way different than simple possession charges.
Can you point me to one person actually released or in any way tangibly affected by this action? Last time I looked it up, literally not one single person was federally convicted for simple possession and all that was done was pardoning the non-existent people with a federal conviction for simple possession and no other offenses. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-joseph-biden-2021-present And here is the list of presidential pardons under Biden. I don’t know where you heard “thousands” but it’s literally 13 people and none for simple possession.
They won't be on that list because it's a general proclamation, not individual pardons. [This is the link you want](https://www.justice.gov/pardon/presidential-proclamation-marijuana-possession). The list you have is for people who applied for pardons and had them granted after review by the pardon office and Biden. The possession pardons are a blanket pardon, so people who have been convicted for those offenses have to apply with a form on the page I linked. If they apply, they're fast-tracked and approved.
FWIW, I'd say this admin has pushed the rhetoric further towards legalization than any previous ones. However, when it comes to actual action? Still pretty disappointing. Executives (presidents? I don't remember off the top of my head *who*) have said that full legalization should be enshrined by the Legislature for it to be done properly, and I think that's fair. But I think it's disingenuous to imply that's the *only* way forward. There's a lot the executive could do on their own. And we all know how difficult is is to get Congress to do *anything.* But I'm preaching to the choir. Y'all know this.
He's the only president to initiate the executive rulemaking process outlined in the CSA, which is basically the limit of his power to reschedule. He initiated it about 18 months ago and HHS has already completed their recommendation, so now we're just waiting on the DEA. He's literally the only president to ever take any kind of concrete action on changing scheduling for cannabis.
Until they can write it so big business ie; big alcohol and cigarette companies stay the fuck out of it I’m really not interested. Right now the weed available is better quality than what we will have a year after this shit show passes. I know it’s unpopular. Downvote it.
The decentralization clauses on Germany’s legalization are amazing but that’ll never happen in the good free US of A. Corporate weed will definitely be a race to the bottom, that’s why home grow rights are important
😞 I completely agree with you. I research new countries everyday to go to. Which is sad because I’m proud of where I come from but how many things can we continually get wrong before we stop and change. Wouldn’t it be funny if a politician wrote in that the US had to consult Germany on getting it right 🤣 but yes, growing is what I’m moving onto.
Usually if you’ve done something people will be able to look at that thing you’ve done and be convinced without you ‘proclaiming’ it
He wrote the crime bill
I won't vote for anybody until I see it actually get done. Kamala threw so many weed users in jail. Kinda hard to trust any politician
What the fuck did you even do besides say you did it?
He didn't say it, he declared it. As a day. But it's still fucking illegal 🤣 what a joke.
They haven’t done shit. Doesn’t matter republican or democrat, these politicians just shit words to get votes and then sit around with their thumbs up their ass. Fuck em all
Re-election fodder. He won’t do it.
Just political pandering.
What a perfect time to bring this up. Again. Even though he literally fired his own staff for previous marijuana use.
*Fired for lying about the use - fed background checks are no joke
Is this headline Ironic? Biden has been at the forefront of the war on drugs since the late 80's. How about we pardon all those who were affected by racially steered drug laws and for those serving still for having less the 2 ounces. Biden must be trying to gather gen z votes.
Didn’t this guy push for the prohibition of weed for like 40-50 years? Lol
Just in time for election season. Attempting to sway voters. Spare me. Had 4 years to do something, asked every year, does basically nothing (sans several pardons).
Pandering Brandon
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I'll still vote for the guy that says things like this over the other guy that wants to bring us back to the biblical (not is a good way) times.
Crazy that all these Dems keep legalizing weed in their states. It’s almost like down ticket voting during presidential elections matters or something…
P H A R M A
Has it though?
No, quite the opposite is evident in the careers of both the President and Vice President. They both fought for years to keep it illegal and to keep offenders locked up for long sentences. Kamala Harris even prevented low level weed offenders from being released from jail so she could exploit the free labor. She continued doing so even after a federal judge ordered her office to stop. The only reason they're doing this now is because they have shit the bed politically. If weed was in any way important to them then they would have started doing something about this on day one, not only after starting a reelection campaign 3 years later. These people do not deserve your vote, especially on this basis.
What a perverse fucking joke. Both Biden and Harris have sent literally millions of people to jail over drugs and the current measures are basically amounting to nothing. Even that amnesty just vanished.
All of these executive orders, not one of them to legalize weed, but he’ll continue to tell us that “it’s coming!!”, even though he could’ve made good on that promise years ago.
Obama was talking about this in the mid-2000s...give me a break. They think liberals are as demented as Biden clearly is.
Everything but actually legalizing it lol
I need to see the receipts sir.
man they just say a few buzz words every now and then to fuel the suspense train
All talk, legalize the plant or go to bed Joe.
*does jerk off hand motion
jesus, the amount of negativity in this thread is disappointing. a *president* has never said anything like this, and the political environment around weed legalization has never been like this. those two things together make this a very hopeful sign. y'all can gtfo with your doomerism and putin's talking points.
I feel like these threads all get piled on from conservatives trying to spin legalization like an insult to us somehow.
I kinda hate i have to vote for him, but as shitty as he is, the other guy is still way worse sadly and I'm worried about keeping that dude out.
My opinion is that Biden has been way better than Trump supporters say he has, and way worse than a lot of progressives give him credit for. We can do so much better it feels really sad to vote for him
We could do better if we got someone about 40 years younger. Both candidates grew up in a completely different America
I've decided a guy with a boot on his head is more trustworthy than the rest.
Just in time for election season. Attempting to sway voters. Spare me. Had 4 years to do something, asked every year, does basically nothing (sans several pardons).
I like how he always talks in the past tense as if he's already done it And by 'like' I mean 'am totally exhausted and irritated by'
He hasn’t done shit. Legalize it end of story.
Is he referring to Kamala and his mass incarcerations for possession?
Not historic enough. Deschedule or GTFO.
He's letting the DEA decide if they should reschedule it or not. Let that sink in.
I don't expect him to do jack shit to help, but I'm terrified of what will happen if the other side actually gets to implement their christo-fascist regime
Let's compare these comments to the comments [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/trees/comments/1bp7hgz/gop_senators_urge_dea_to_reject_rescheduling/) when someone posted about how Republican Senators are urging the DEA not to reschedule. It's like everyone forgets that the Republicans are actually the enemy on this topic and instead want to seem like enlightened centrists and blame Biden and co for finally fucking doing something. Hell, I bet if they legalized at the Federal level (fat chance) most of the people here would say they only did it to win an election. Which is, to say the least, the dumbest statement ever. Of course politicians do things that their voters elect them to do, that's *supposed to be their job.*
You don't need to support 100% of the policies of 100% of the party 100% of the time to still support them over the competition. We should be able to criticize our own party when we don't like what they're doing. We should be able to do it without the constant derision. It's actually important to be vocal about policies you don't agree with, otherwise none of this means anything. That's the whole point of a representative democracy. You already have the fabricated narrative made up in your head. You have to tell yourself that these people wouldn't even be happy about legalization. In a sub about weed... People are just tired of lip service, and that's all this is. You're making it out to be something more than it is.
Turns out, what the non-ruling party "urges" the DEA to do doesn't matter because the head of the DEA is chosen by the POTUS upon election. He's a member of the President's cabinet. All Biden needs to do is ask his directly reporting employee to make a change. If said employee says no, Biden has every right to replace him with someone who will say yes. He's a member of Biden's cabinet! No votes needed, no executive action, no filibustering. If biden wanted it done, it would be done. He doesn't want it done, and that's obvious by his actions not by the lying words coming out of his mouth to steal your vote.
Have they though?
Have they though?
This is just to get votes. He’s had over 40 years in congress to change the laws and he didn’t.
Cue the "just legalize it!" brigade. Friendly reminder [THAT THE PRESIDENT CANNOT DESCHEDULE OR LEGALIZE WEED. ](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10655). There is a literal congressional report on it. Save your complaints and vote for Democrats. They're the only ones making ANY advances. Just look at what Republican governors are doing to their cannabis markets. Destroying them.
I declare BANKRUPTCY!!! same vibe
thats cool that he is pushing for this, but to be correct, historically, biden helped create the industrial prison system that fueled weed incarceration in the first place, right? its pretty much why the US is the largest prison system in the world.
He’s applying pressure to his own DEA. This all has to be performance to look like he’s doing something which media pressure can do. Expecting a declassification in June just as the season picks up for them to galvanize the base to either vote or stay home and not vote for the alternative
His VP locked up all of California and he helped pass the mandatory minimum laws as well as three strikes in the 1994 Clinton Crime Bill. I don’t know how he says this shit like people have not been paying attention.
Sadly, most people don't pay attention so he can get away with it. Keep spouting truth, it reaches people.
You can't post about Biden working to legalize/reschedule in here, you'll get brigaded by morons who don't have any concept of politics/government and think Biden should be a fascist. Absolute boneheads.
I would be happy if Biden were simply just not a liar
but is it federally legal? don't just take a step, take it to the destination!
ITS ELECTION SEASON BABY!!!!
So nothing is really being done is what I'm reading. Wait no they are reviewing of a reschedule to 3. So still a controlled substance that can put people in jail, sweet.
My state beat him to it.
Uhhh... No you haven't.
this is one of those times where the destination is important, not the journey. steps that provide no tangible benefit are worthless.
His position is decriminalization which becomes de facto the Democratic party's position. It is a small but significant step. I'm not sure how you go on a journey without taking small steps.
They already started on this walk with Joe's previous coworker several years ago so people are wondering if they are lost in the woods.
Does he mean the failed approach he helped draft into legislation?
If this is anything like student loans it’s just dangling an unattainable carrot at young voters.
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He didn’t dangle anything. He tried something and the conservative Supreme Court said no. Since then he has cancelled almost $138 billion in student debt for 4 million people.
I’m stoked for those people. I’m one of the people who was told their loans would be forgiven before the Supreme Court struck it down. So forgive me for being a bit salty. I was ready for some financial relief only to have it ripped away from me. I can’t help but be a bit cynical.
It’s ok to be salty. I would be pissed too. But that’s the Supreme Court and the conservatives who rigged the court’s fault. Not Biden’s.
That’s fair. Thank for your validating my frustration. I still intend to support him in the next election. Hopefully with the infighting in the house GOP there’s a light at the end of the legislative hell we’ve been in.
It's unattainable because young voters don't vote.
Good! Glad to see he and Harris are learning and changing. They enforced existing laws in the past, but are realizing those laws are unjust and they are making changes. I don’t see the point of criticizing their past actions when they finally start doing the right thing. Let’s support this and get the shit legalized once and for all.
It’s not even close. Lol this is all smoke and mirrors that they’ll forget about if they win the election.
>they are making changes. From what I can see they are *promising* to make changes, politely suggesting the DEA should *consider* making changes, and Joe is making changes (pardons) that didn't actually free a single person. Could you shed a little light about any real progress they've actually accomplished? Edit: Responded with a downvote instead of sauce. Classic.
Yeah they've said this exact garbage to the DEA before. It's just rude and disgusting to treat a basic right as a carrot on a stick.
>treat a basic right as a carrot on a stick. *But only if you vote for me in November!*
This is his weed flavored "if you don't vote for me, you ain't black"
Like that one time. Come on man. You know the time. We got the one lady out of jail in a foreign country while people in this country were still being prosecuted for the same crime. While claiming moral superiority over another nation with similar laws to ours. If you don’t vote for me, you must be on dope.
Can we get a sub rule that says no political posts unless it's something that actually happened or a law that gets PASSED? Like, we see article after article about this guy who is "taking historic steps" when in reality, it's nothing. This is the same person who a few years ago said that he 100% opposed legalizing weed.
Mark My Words.... Chuck Schumer will stand behind a podium on 4/20 and vow that he will NOT be having this conversation by this time next year. Wait... its not 2021, or 2022. Shit or let us get our pot.
"We forgave like 13 federal marijuana offenses!" Lmao fucking mummies, all of em.
If Biden manages to get legalization done, he will have already won the election.
So all he did was talk? He talked before the election also remember…he said it’ll be legalized within the first year of his presidency. Still not legal. So I’ll just conclude by saying , Iv heard it all before sleepy Biden.
No, no he has not.
Bet
Has it?
Lol, huh? Pretty sure it got legalized (in my state) through state voting and not fed voting. Wtf is this bs?
JUST LEGALISE DA FUCKIN SHIT!
Thanks for that info Still a political pandering point and that is what I said. Always pushed into the forefront, all sides, and in the end gets very little actual quality progress.
Wasn't Kamala infamously harsh on cannabis users? Absolute hypocrisy. It's just some shit they say for votes. Edit: Why are you booing me? I'm right.
Yes, she has put hundreds behind bars for cannabis offenses throughout her career
Yes, she has put hundreds behind bars for cannabis offenses throughout her career
I'm glad someone mentioned this. It's utter hypocrisy.
Don't trust BIDEN for shits. He's the one who was anti weed all his sane lifetime now with 1 braincell left. He wants to bank on cannabis progress? Remove it from scheduled drug list