The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services is recommending that the Drug Enforcement Agency significantly loosen federal restrictions on marijuana but stopped short of advising that it should be entirely removed from the Controlled Substances Act.
The health agency wants the drug moved from Schedule I to Schedule III under the CSA, potentially the biggest change in federal drug policy in decades.
HHS Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine wrote in a Tuesday letter to the DEA, first reported by Bloomberg News, that the recommendation was based on a review conducted by the Food and Drug Administration.
Is this the thread where we remind everyone that Biden promised to deschedule cannabis and expunge cannabis related criminal records if elected?
The
executive branchpresident doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally deschedule it. I’m no Biden fan, but this is him working toward that promise. I do wish his moves were less political in nature, but maybe we can get a more unhinged dark Brandon if he gets reelected.Edited for clarity.
What would you like from him? I see that he is very aggressively chasing public favor. “his moves were less political” - so there is something you’d like him to do that wouldn’t be so popular?
By less political, I mean moves that are meant to not shake the boat, such as falling short of just outright stating that weed should be legalized.
Edit: misplaced not
Yes it does. The drug schedule is set by the FDA which is under the executive branch. The President cannot LEGALIZE it, that takes an act of Congress. But, the drug classification is completely in their power.
a substance can be placed in a CSA (Controlled Substances Act) schedule, moved to a different schedule, or removed from control under the CSA either by legislation or through an administrative rulemaking process overseen by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and based on criteria set out in the CSA. The CSA also directs the Attorney General (who has delegated CSA scheduling authority to DEA) to schedule substances as required to comply with the United States’ treaty obligations.
If the President sought to act in the area of controlled substances regulation, he would likely do so by executive order. However, the Supreme Court has held that the President has the power to issue an executive order only if authorized by “an act of Congress or . . . the Constitution itself.” The CSA does not provide a direct role for the President in the classification of controlled substances, nor does Article II of the Constitution grant the President power in this area (federal controlled substances law is an exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce). Thus, it does not appear that the President could directly deschedule or reschedule marijuana by executive order.
Sauce: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10655
the drug classification is completely in their power.
That would be nice, but it isn’t how our government works.
True, but the DEA is also under the President, and it’s head is picked by the President. It is the DEAs decision, but their boss has input. I know it’s not simple, but there is incredibly strong influence.
Hence him pushing for rescheduling. At this point, you are just restating the point I was making in my original comment. Biden’s doing what he has the power/influence to do to get marijuana legalized.
The executive branch doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally deschedule it.
Either he promised to do something he couldn’t do and you’re defending him for it, or he promised to do something he could do and you’re making excuses for him.
I am pretty sure he didn’t actually promise it. I know he said he supports decriminalization and getting it rescheduled to Schedule 2, but I am pretty confident he never went out and said “I will get it moved to schedule 2” or anything along those lines.
I have seen a lot of people say about what he promised to do while campaigning but I am pretty sure it is mostly people taking him saying he wants to do something and reading it as him saying “I will do this”. Joe Biden has been in politics a very long time and knows what the president can and can’t do, I doubt he overpromised.
It isn’t like he ran as a progressive, he didn’t make a ton of big promises while campaigning. It was basically him saying “I will make things somewhat normal” after the Trunp presidency.
Nothing will fundamentally change
I agree with you, at least under Joe Biden. And I hate that nothing will change under Joe Biden. I’m just saying that he didn’t advertise himself on things changing. He advertised himself as being sane and stable compared to Donald Trump. Which he has pretty much fulfilled.
Nobody here is really defending Joe Biden or making excuses for him. We just acknowledge who he is as a politician. Personally, considering Joe Biden’s track record on drugs/weed, I’m pleased with what he has done and with this. It isn’t what I want, but this was a man who wrote anti-drug legislation while in Congress, this is more than I’d have expected from him if you asked me prior to him running for President.
Well said. I personally would want a much more progressive president. But, given his track record, I had very, very low expectations for him. I’m happy to say that he has exceeded my expectations, which is nice. But, there’s still a lot more that could be done.
I was specifically referring to Biden’s own words. “Nothing will fundamentally change” is a campaign promise. https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/
I completely misunderstood, my bad. That is what I get for posting right before bed, I didn’t make the connection at all haha
What a negative take. OP just finished saying Biden is taking steps to fulfill his promise, and you’re trying to put an ultimatum on “he can, or he cannot.” It is never that black and white nor is it an overnight action
Our populace has been conditioned to see issues as black and white. If people recognized the nuance in topics like this, it would be much harder to divide us on ideological lines, and therefore harder to control us.
It’s not their fault, but we should just generally ignore takes like that. It’s usually not even worth responding to.
I’ll believe it when I see it. The DEA ultimately gets to make the call. A change like this would probably mean they’d lose some funding, so I bet they’ll be against it. They’d also have to come up with new and creative ways to “legally” harass and incarcerate black people, though I imagine that might be a tempting prospect for them…
It wouldn’t stop any arrests, it basically only opens up the stock market for the companies.
Not just the stock market but banking* in general. Ever paid attention to the types of crimes associated with dispensaries?
Edit: changed banning to banking. Mobile is lovely.
In my state (and probably all states), the rec dispensaries are all cash-only businesses. Apparently because they cannot do business with any banks under federal law.
They have ATMs and they can usually run a debit card as an ATM transaction (which charges an ATM fee, and they have to round up to $5 and give you back the difference cash).
Literally the only place I use my debit card (bank reimburses the fees).
But this means a lot of risk…they have to deal with transport/deposits, and having a large amount of cash in hand in the shop. Granted, at least in my state, every store has a mantrap where your ID gets scanned before you can go to into the shop, but that’s still pretty scary. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the mantrap is really only necessary to protect the workers and the cash on-hand.
And there’s also the issue of payroll, since as an otherwise above-board business, they can’t be paying their employees in cash. But they also can’t work with the banks. This adds a lot of complexity and usually results in workers all being contractors for some other entity entirely, which really sounds a bit shady and probably pretty easy to screw up come tax time.
They really need to be allowed to work with the banks.
Yep. Allowing them to use banks could mostly eliminate cash purchases, it at the very least, they could be using secure cash drops like convenience stores and having transfer agencies handle moving the cash. It would further shine a light on the businesses and possibly help move cartels out of the growth-to-user pipeline.
What makes you say that dispensaries can’t pay their employees in cash? That’s a total legal and fine thing to do… why wouldn’t it be? A business cant pay their employees in money? I know plenty of people who are paid in cash, including a few dispensary workers…
If it became a schedule 3 drug, would it require the doctor to specifically give amounts in a prescription and a pharmacist to dispense it?
“legally” harass and incarcerate black people
They are working on the with funding cop cities everywhere
I’m glad they are finally doing something about climate anxiety.
Here I was worried about the collapse of the jet steam and this nice distraction came along.
It’ll definitely help the anxiety part, but probably not the climate part unless it creates a bunch more hippies who actually want to do something about it.
Legalize it completely, you pussy. I swear… This guy sucks so hard. I voted for him, but what a waste to have him running in the first place as the democratic candidate.
He is objectively the most left pres we’ve had in decades. Big sweeping changes don’t happen overnight. This is a step in the right direction. Get some perspective.
Also it means medical marijuana would be legal like other class 3 drugs
He had some of his white house staff fired over weed use, we’re lucky someone finally talked some sense into him over cannabis reform.
“Someone” = internal pollsters who showed him that this would make him a lot more popular.
So, you think voting for a Republican or not voting would get the job done to legalize marijuana? Lol.
Also, these things require congressional approval. And guess what…yup…Republicans are blocking.
You know he has no authority to do that right? It takes a bill from Congress, which for some reason will not touch the issue. He’s not a dictator, he can’t wave a magical wand and declare it legal. The president (little p, it goes for any of them) gets too much blame (and credit) for these things. Like when everyone blamed him for gas prices like he goes to each gas station and sets the price…
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Didn’t we already do this song and dance a year or two back? None of this means anything if you won’t take it off the controlled substance list.
