President Joe Biden tackles the marijuana problem in the U.S.




Photo by Jose Luis Magana on  AP NEWS

    On October 6th Joe Biden publicly announced that all prior offenses towards possession of marijuana are now pardoned. This is huge progress in the ongoing decriminalizing process and debate on whether marijuana should be legal or not. Also, another big step in the ongoing issue that has drastically impacted the people of color community. Though the pardon is not defending those who were arrested with possession of intent to distribute, those will continue to have their charges with them. This pardon can also help lead to more job employment. Joe Biden stated, "There are thousands of people who have prior Federal convictions for marijuana possession, which may be denied employment, housing, or educational opportunities as a result." Just last month, Joe Biden made a tweet about how over 263,000 jobs were added, now over 10 million since Joe Biden has been in office. Does this pardon expect to add a large growth to the employment numbers? We will have to wait and see. 




    Joe Biden and his administration are also closely working with the secretary of Health and Human Services and the U.S. attorney general with aim of eliminating criminal penalties for possession of marijuana. In the tweet above, you can see that Joe Biden is encouraging governors to do the same. He wants other states to ease marijuana laws as well but still keep track of ongoing trafficking and underage sales. New York has seen similar progress toward decriminalizing marijuana as a whole. Although the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance is thrilled about the announcement, there is still conflict with Police departments in America regarding what is lawful. "Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana," President Joe Biden said. Many were anticipating this progress to be stated by Joe Biden's administration as it was one of his presidential campaign promises. Over 29 million Americans have been arrested for charges related to marijuana; maybe now, this change can add fewer and fewer to that count. 

Sources

Miller, Zeke. “Biden Pardons Thousands for 'Simple Possession' of Marijuana.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 7 Oct. 2022, https://apnews.com/article/biden-marijuana-government-and-politics-2d5e3d9e2cfbbbe3ee114536738894a8. 

Comments

  1. Two Sides of the Same CoinNovember 27, 2022 at 9:50 PM

    Hi Jackson,
    At the time of this news of a pardon of all prior federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana, I wondered if this was truly a federal priority. Upon a little more research I found that this would affect about 6,500 thousand offenders (and their families.) The Washington Post reported that no one is currently serving time in federal prison solely for the crime of simple marijuana possession, but about 6,500 people have such convictions on their records.

    However, now I see that movement is happening on the second part of the tweet where President Biden urged governors to do the same. It was reported on November 21, 2022 in The New Republic that Governor Kate Brown of Oregon pardoned 45,000 Oregonians convicted of possession of an ounce or less of marijuana before 2016. Oregon legalized recreational marijuana use in July 2015. Additionally, about $14,000 total in fines and fees linked to prior offenses will be forgiven. Although Governor Brown made no mention of the President’s appeal, she did reiterate some of the same reasons for her decision such as removing housing insecurity, employment barriers, and educational obstacles for something that has now been legal for a while.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/06/biden-marijuana-decriminalization/
    https://newrepublic.com/post/169072/oregon-governor-kate-brown-pardon-45000-people-marijuana

    ReplyDelete

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