Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday called on the federal government to move “as quickly as possible” to change the way it officially classifies marijuana, saying that “nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.”
“I cannot emphasize enough that they need to get to it as quickly as possible,” Harris said. “We need to have a resolution based on their findings and their assessment. This issue is stark when one considers the fact that on the schedule currently, marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin ― as dangerous as heroin ― and more dangerous than fentanyl, which is absurd, not to mention patently unfair.”
Marijuana is currently listed as a Schedule 1 drug by the Drug Enforcement Administration. That classification designates it one of the most dangerous drugs possible, with no medicinal uses. Other substances in the same category include heroin, ecstasy and LSD. Marijuana advocates have been pushing for years for the federal government to either reschedule marijuana to a different category or deschedule it entirely.
“Somebody ought to do something about this ASAP,” says one of the only people on the planet actually capable of doing something about it for the last 4 years. OK.
Elections are coming up so it’s time to talk about it and do nothing else that would make it happen
Lemmy sees something good happen:
“Not good enough!”
We all know it should have happened before, but dismissing that the vice president just publicly called for this is silly
Biden campaigned on rescheduling it so this is just nakedly trying to boost their pre-election popularity. They could’ve done this day one. They didn’t. They won’t.
Web archive of Biden’s campaign site, September 2019: http://web.archive.org/web/20190723224533/https://joebiden.com/justice/
Decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions. Biden believes no one should be in jail because of cannabis use. As president, he will decriminalize cannabis use and automatically expunge prior convictions. And, he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes, leave decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states, and reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.
I’ll drop this here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahsinclair/2024/01/18/dea-considers-rescheduling-cannabis-what-this-means-for-us-and-global-reform/?sh=2ce8efef743f
Note the date. This is the final step in rescheduling marijauna.
And look at this. Pardons, wow: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/12/22/a-proclamation-on-granting-pardon-for-the-offense-of-simple-possession-of-marijuana-attempted-simple-possession-of-marijuana-or-use-of-marijuana/
Biden: Holds the trump card that is almost guaranteed to get him reelected
Yall: WhY dIdN’t He UsE iT sOoNeR
He started the work in 2022. You think he just started it? Did you not read the links I provided?
I didn’t say he just started. Thanks for putting words in my mouth. I said he knows that if he made weed legal too early the stoners would forget about it and potentially not vote.
Playing the trump card right before elections? Everyone is in a super high (lol) and is super in the mood to vote.
Cannabis prohibition is still harming the communities it was designed to disrupt.
But none of the people in those communities matter. Let them needlessly suffer for our stupid timing games.
I also never said it was the best course of action for the betterment of people. Just politically. Which I don’t agree with but understand
But please, keep painting me as terrible
Obama campaigned on this so it’s been 12 years they’ve fucked around on it. People need to stop defending the Democratic party for being corrupt pieces of shit.
They’ve been “calling for it” since Biden campaign. And reschedule? It should be descheduled.
And the DEA is actively working on it, which just so happens to be the final step in rescheduling a drug.
I work in the space industry and this just reeks of the “hurry up and wait” that I live in. If the right pressure was there, it’d be rescheduled already. I’m 50/50 on if they are actually working on it or if feet are being dragged due to institutional friction.
They’re doing as little as possible to say they’re working on it.
I hate it here for that reason. With this being the last option, I’ve reverted to Google News, NYTimes and SF Chronicle apps. Lemmy’s inability to feel joy has helped me ditch social media most of the time.
Reddit very seriously had the same problem.
The under current of negativity seems a bit stronger here though imo.
I guess when you have a huge portion of posters that self-selected to leave a platform in protest you get population predisposed to protesting and complaining about things.
It gets a bit tiring to hear people see incremental change but shit on it because it’s not perfect or “it should have happened sooner”. I wonder if these people would ever be happy with anything?
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. If they get this rescheduled that would be a huge win.
They won’t. They’ve been fucking around on this for at least 12 years.
I hope they do just to shut up a bunch of people up but that part definitely won’t happen.
That’s a poor attitude.
You’d know about those I suppose.
It isn’t good enough… we have fucking nothing and there’s been chat about this for close to 2 decades.
Oh sure, every 4 years Lucy comes out with the football and taunts you to take a run at it and I’m the one not being realistic. It’s total horseshit to disappear on an issue every 4 years except when you think it might help you in an election to wave it around.
It’s not “Lemmy sees something good happen”; nothing good has happened. The same platitudes have been trotted out for the 78th time. But maybe this time…!
The words of a politician are not accomplishments.
If it ever gets descheduled, it’ll be an accomplishment. I’m not going to treat announcements as accomplishments.
Public discourse from a sitting executive politician represents progress. It is not enough yet, but it is progress. In years past such statements would have been massively disruptive, and via speech like this the topic is being normalized.
It’s not enough yet. We arenf done
Stop expecting me to believe that politicians’ lies are progress just because you believe them.
It’s not an accomplishment until it’s accomplished.
Just because you don’t understand the power of normalized discourse doesn’t mean I have some obligation to you.
I’m just telling you how reality works.
Edit im proud to hear more discussion of climate, LGBT, drug decrim and other issues, at increasingly public and increasingly executive levels.
I know the difference between hot air and accomplishments. You’re not going to gaslight me into accepting the former as the latter. All you’re doing is convincing me that you prefer words to accomplishments.
50 years ago a woman, non-white politician wouldn’t have been a common thing. Part of how we got to where we are today is via public, popularized discourse.
The same occurs in this article and the speech that lead to it.
It doesn’t mean the world is changing in an active sense, but it does mean the conversation is happening. This is part of the power of executive office.
I’m sorry you had to learn about this from me.
We lost roe because we only talked about codifying it.
Biden could order cannabis descheduled ( what his campaign program was) and if agencies don’t listen, fucking fire the agency heads and hire someone that will. It literally one of the handful of things he could do himself.
But somehow it’s 3.5 years into his first term. And Biden has apparently compromised even more with himself and we won’t get his original compromise of descheduling.
When a president acts like this right before their next election, lots of voters rationally stop believing any of their current campaign promises.
What do you mean? This is standard political fare… most of the population has the memory of a goldfish, so popular shit like this always waits until the election cycle.
Additionally, an executive order, or changing the chief of the DEA, are probably the least effective ways to handle it. All it would take is a republican administration to undo it all. The way that sticks best is legislation.
Your boat is leaking.
Do you either bail out the water, or try to get into port so you can fix it.
Or maybe, you do both. Biden can reschedule…. Today. He could have done it 3.5 years ago.
He hasn’t. He probably won’t.
You’re right that legislation is a more permanent fix. No question there. Doesn’t mean you don’t work the other, faster, solution to get something good enough for the time being done.
I’m not convinced they’d even try passing the legislation once some executive order was issued. It would be touted as a victory for the Biden Administration, and then forgotten about until 2028…
God damnit, when did I become so cynical?
You’ve seen the world we live in.
Cynicism is just a prudent reaction to reality.
Biden cannot just wave a wand. Learn the fucking truth before you spout nonsense like this.
He’s been following the framework of the CSA since October 2022 with this: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/
And it’s currently in the final stage, sitting with the DEA. It’s getting done.
You consider a press release from the guy slow walking this to be a reliable source.
Following tue legal framework to get this done is slow footing it? Are you aware it’s in the final stage before getting rescheduled?
Claiming that slow walking it is following some fictional legal framework is just an excuse for slow walking it.
I’m not buying any bullshit about it being the final anything.
If you want me to treat it as anything more than a filthy lie, democrats should have been taking their campaign promises more seriously.
Let me guess. We’re in the final stage of passing the public option, the minimum wage increase, codifying roe, and closing gitmo as well. I’m sure we’re in the final stage of passing BBB and reforming our out of control police too.
After decades of lies, you expect me to buy that Democrats are telling the truth about wanting to do the right thing?
What unmitigated hogwash.
Fictional legal framework? Lmao
Go read up on the CSA hon.
The decision is resting with the DEA now, who are the decision makers.
Stupid uninformed people…
Most of them vote R or not at all.
But neoliberals refuse to acknowledge people who aren’t ignorant and do care.
“Because what are ya gonna do, vote Republican?”
It doesn’t work.
Maybe we try helping people? Worst case scenario, Dems actually help people when they’re in office.
Isn’t that the whole point of electing Dems? Isn’t that better than just stalling the Republicans destruction of our country?
I completely agree… but that’s how this shit goes. This is definitely one of the situations where both sides pull the same shenanigans. When was the last time you heard Kamala Harris open her mouth? Granted, she’s been busy in a divided Senate, but Dan Quayle was more visibly present during the elder Bush’s administration than Kamala has been during Biden’s. Now she crawls out of the Senate chambers to talk about cannabis? Better late than never I guess.
It’s not like Biden’s administration hasn’t been doing anything useful. But these wildly popular policy initiatives that would do a lot of good often wait for politically convenient moments when it’ll be fresh in the electorate’s memory.
Which is the exact danger of running neoliberals that only care about being elected.
The only thing making this “how shit goes” is both parties get money from the same donors who don’t want anything fixed.
It’s not like how the sun sets everyday and there’s nothing we can do.
So telling people “that’s the way she goes” isn’t helping and is only hurting turnout.
Ok… so how do we run people genuinely interested in fixing it? How do we make this not how shit goes? I can’t argue that it’s really disheartening, but the idea that any party is going to run anyone primarily interested in anything other than getting reelected is absurd. The National Committees for each party would never give them a platform. Running third party is suicide here.
The real change that needs to happen is election reform to provide more transparent campaign financing and moving away from a First Past the Post voting system. That’s how you get people in who can actually fix the issues we have in a constructive and positive manner. It won’t be perfect but it would be helpful. Then we’d have a flourishing of different political parties emerge and voters would have actual choice.
“That’s the way she goes” shouldn’t hurt turnout. The reality is we’re facing the single greatest threat to the basic ideals of the American Republican Democracy. Bigger things are afoot than cannabis policy. I’ll take this political grandstanding from the Biden administration 10 times out of 10 than one more day of a Trump administration.
Ranked choice voting! Then, aside from the stupid money and power the two party system has, you can make your voice heard. You can actually say “I don’t want Biden, but I’ll take him if my candidate doesn’t win.” That will make the neo-libs move the needle. Like everything else, though, it will probably happen state-by-state.
All of those are good ideas to fix it, but we can’t make those changes with the system as broken as it is.
I think the biggest thing to help turnout would be acknowledging that nothing is going to get done, and that we want a government that just makes nice noises since we clearly can’t get one that actually works. Like you said: You’d take this sort of grandstanding over Trump any day.
It’s like a mechanic putting in some Sea Foam cleaner to get rid of the knock over doing a full engine rebuild, which we can’t afford. Yeah, it’s gonna break down eventually but at least you don’t have to deal with the noise. It’ll break down eventually, but for now you can at least hear NPR.
Undo citizens united would be a great first step…
Something that the majority of Dem voters agree with.
Without those donations and the obligations they come with, neoliberals would stop winning primary elections, and the ones still in office would stop having a reason to oppose progress.
I didn’t read anything else you typed after that, because if you didn’t understand that already, I don’t see how anything else you could have said was in any way relevant
Not very wise in the ways of the legislative beach, are we?
Ah… so you’re not interested in discourse. I see.
Citizens united was bullshit and never should have gone the way it did, but more could be done.
And as another user mentioned… undoing settled case law is a terrible way of doing things… look at RvW…
I guess pardoning all federal possession and use convictions isn’t helping people eh?
Source for where Biden called for it to be descheduled?
I can’t find it.
https://thelemmy.club/comment/9206748
So you don’t have one?
He didn’t campaign on DEscheduling, he campaigned on REscheduling. Which just so happens to be in the final stage of happening.
He attempted to forgive student debt (which was in his right to do so as head of the executive branch) and got swatted down by the corrupt Supreme Court. What do you think will happen if he rescheduled marijuana?
He waited 2 years till he lost the house, made a half assed attempt he knew would fail, then said:
And voters remember that when it’s two years later and he tries to tell them elections are important and if Trump wins suddenly the president is all powerful.
Neoliberals do the same shit as republicans. They need their voters to believe that when the other team is president, the president is all powerful. But when their own team is in power, the president can’t do shit, so it’s not their fault campaign promises aren’t kept.
The student loan forgiveness was swatted down because he technically didn’t really have the authority to do so, Congress typically holds the power of the purse. Rescheduling isn’t at risk of violating the separation of power as the DEA is under the purview of the executive.
The Higher Education Act of 1965 grants a presidential administration via the Education Secretary, authority to “enforce, pay, compromise, waive, or release” government-held federal student loans.
At least until the Corrupt Supreme Court said differently.
I think this was always back-pocketed for right before the election if he thought it’d help push him over the edge.
It might be a smart political move to do it right before the election so it’s fresh on all of our goldfish brains.
Yeah I agree, they’d be better not even bringing it up instead of walking around campaigning on something they should have done years ago.
It’s honestly just insulting at this point. Deschedule the fucking plant already, you doddering old fools.
When you’re done, we can have a frank conversation about the number of people directly killed by alcohol each year. (It’s literally infinitely more compared to marijuana.)
Man I think you have way too high of expectations for the actual powers of a vice presidency.