Biden may have reaffirmed his commitment to federal marijuana policy reform, but simply rescheduling won’t help those who have been most harmed by prohibition, say activists.
Whilst at a campaign event in Wisconsin on Wednesday, the President responded to a sign held by a cannabis activist stating “no one should be jailed,” to assure them he was “taking care of that.”
But campaigners claim that the only way for Biden to “fulfill his promise” is for cannabis to be removed entirely from the Controlled Substances Act.
It comes as Vice President Kamala Harris told a roundtable discussion on Friday, March 15, attended by a number of Presidential pardon recipients, that the DEA needs to reschedule “as quickly as possible”.
Following a HHS review, instructed in October 2022 by President Biden, which recommended marijuana be moved to a Schedule III drug, the Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed it was conducting its own evaluation in January.
But behind closed doors, the VP reportedly went one step further, stating “we need to legalize marijuana”, Chris Goldstein, regional coordinator for NORML and one of those in attendance, told Marijuana Moment.
In a newsletter distributed by NORML ahead of the event, Goldstein said that he intended to use his time with Harris to “bring further awareness to the Presidential pardon process and to emphasize the need for further federal action, such as descheduling cannabis.”
With a decision from the DEA expected any day, Goldstein is among lawyers, regulators, health professionals and advocates who are highlighting the need for full descheduling.
Is Rescheduling Enough?
Both President Biden and Vice President Harris pledged to federally decriminalize marijuana on the 2020 campaign trail. But some are concerned that their actions haven’t gone far enough to achieve this.
From a regulatory perspective, moving marijuana to Schedule III would see the substance classed in a lower risk category, alongside the likes of Tylenol with codeine and anabolic steroids, as well as acknowledgement of its “currently accepted medical use.”
However, other than potential tax benefits for businesses, it’s not fully clear what the impact of this would be on individuals—if any at all.
Marijuana would still be classed as a controlled drug under the CSA and therefore people would still be criminalized and prosecuted for its use.
And while it could potentially be prescribed for medical use under Schedule III, products would first need to obtain FDA approval.
“President Biden, particularly during his 2020 election campaign, and largely when communicating to Black and brown communities, promised a decriminalization of marijuana use and expungement of records,” says Cat Packer, director of Drug Markets and Legal Regulation at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), and vice chair of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition, during a video interview.
“Rescheduling marijuana as Schedule III would continue the very criminalization that Biden said that he would end.
“My concern is that this is going to be sold as a victory for all—and particularly a victory for Black and brown communities—when in reality, these are going to be the very communities that are left behind.”
‘Criminalization Is A Racial Equity Issue’
Black and brown communities have been disproportionately affected by criminalization since the ‘War on Drugs’ began.
“We know based on the data that Black and brown individuals are almost four times as likely to be convicted for cannabis use despite equal rates of usage across those demographic lines,” says Sarah Gersten, executive director and General Counsel of The Last Prisoner Project (LPP), in a phone interview.
“Unfortunately, we still have hundreds of thousands of arrests for just simple possession of marijuana today. Despite the vast majority of states legalizing it and despite the federal government looking to change their position on cannabis policy, this is still happening to hundreds of thousands of people every year.”
In fact, according to figures cited by Diane Goldstein of LEAP (Law Enforcement Action Partnership) during a recent press conference held by the DPA of the 11.8 million arrests for drug-related offenses since 2011, arrests for simple possession of cannabis account for approximately 35% of all drug arrests—and make up a total of 16.5% of all arrests in the U.S.
Even President Biden, on the campaign trail, acknowledged that while Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, they are disproportionately arrested, prosecuted and convicted, Packer highlighted.
“Black and brown communities expect and demand more because we know that the Biden administration knows that marijuana criminalization is a racial equity issue,” she said.
“But personal acknowledgement is not the same as systemic change and the Administration’s rhetoric simply doesn’t match the reality.”