-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email During the 2020 presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden repeatedly pledged to decriminalize marijuana and automatically expunge marijuana records – identifying these issues as barriers to racial equity . As we lead into the 2024 election , President Biden still hasn’t fulfilled that promise. Instead, Biden is pushing watered down marijuana reform and nice-sounding rhetoric in hopes of reaching more voters, particularly Black, Latinx and young voters.
67% of young voters are dissatisfied with the candidates in the upcoming presidential election according to CNN , and nearly 1 in 5 Black voters who voted for Biden in 2020 say they are uncertain about him in 2024, according to a Washington Ipsos poll. These same voting blocs overwhelmingly support marijuana legalization . Related Why criminalization of drugs doesn't prevent overdoses But here’s the truth: rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III , as Biden’s DEA is proposing, would maintain federal criminalization.
Currently, marijuana is a Schedule I drug in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the most restrictive category. A shift to Schedule III would symbolically acknowledge that marijuana has a relatively low risk for abuse and medical value. But in effect, the proposed change would keep federal penalties for marijuana in place and would benefit businesses rather than those harmed by marijuana criminalization.
Eliminating these glaring contradictions between our state a.
