On Wednesday, six Democratic senators wrote to President Joe Biden to ask him to pardon all federal nonviolent marijuana convictions and follow up on campaign promises that cannabis would be removed from Schedule I status.
The letter, signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), among others, applauded Biden’s recent pardons of nine people facing marijuana-related charges, but said that the administration’s general inaction in relation to marijuana has been wholly insufficient.
“We commend President Biden’s recent pardons and commutations of 78 people, including nine with non-violent cannabis related offenses,” the senators say. “However, much more has to be done to address the racist and harmful legacy of cannabis policies on Black and Brown communities.”
Tens of thousands of peopleapproximately half of all people in prison on federal charges in 2020 are expected to be incarcerated for marijuana offenses were being held for drug related crimes. Black people are disproportionately impacted by restrictive drug policies — which are more aggressively enforced in communities of color — and are about four timesMore likely to be arrested on marijuana-related charges
Warren and Booker wrote to Justice in October asking for the Department of Justice to de-schedule cannabis from Schedule I drugs. This classification places it among the most tightly regulated drugs and makes marijuana not suitable for medical use.
The department answered six months later, saying that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had found that “cannabis has not been proven in scientific studies to be a safe and effective treatment for any disease or condition.” As the senators noted in their letter, this assertion is false, as studies have found marijuana to be effective in treating a number of medical conditions — and marijuana’s classification as a Schedule I drug limits scientists’ ability to study its effects.
In their letter on Wednesday, lawmakers called the Justice Department’s half-page response “extraordinarily disappointing” and said that the “assertion ignores the ability of the DOJ and Drug Enforcement Administration to begin the descheduling process and act independently of an HHS determination.”
“The Administration’s failure to coordinate a timely review of its cannabis policy is harming thousands of Americans, slowing research, and depriving Americans of their ability to use marijuana for medical or other purposes,” the lawmakers wrote.
This is the second time lawmakers have asked for pardons to marijuana-related convictions. November Warren and Booker wrote to Biden asking him to issue a “blanket pardon” for nonviolent federal marijuana convictions, but never received a response.
Biden supported marijuana legalization, but he didn’t call for federal legislation. He did not call for federal legislation in 2019. told voters at an event that “nobody should be in jail for smoking marijuana,” and a spokesperson for Biden said that he “supports decriminalizing marijuana and automatically expunging prior criminal records for marijuana possession.” He has also expressed support for reclassifying marijuana as a Class II drug.
Biden, however has not taken any significant action on marijuana decriminalization, or offered pardons to anyone convicted with marijuana charges, except for a few pardons. In fact, reporters foundLast year, the Biden Administration fired and suspended people who used marijuana in the past. This despite the fact that marijuana has been legalized for recreational and medical use in D.C. 27 states.
