In October of 2022, I wrote about the underwhelming nature of President Joe Biden’s pardons for some people convicted of marijuana offenses. What Biden proclaimed was a big rollback in the war on marijuana was really much less. The same goes for the new effort by the Biden administration to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act.
In a Wednesday Reason article, Jacob Sullum lays out the particulars of how the proposed rescheduling, like the prior pardons, is far from the advertised major rollback in the war on marijuana. “Even while condemning the injustice inflicted by a ‘failed approach to marijuana,’” Sullum sums up the situation, Biden “is sticking with it.”
Biden, a long-time top drug warrior, won’t just push for national legalization of marijuana despite that course having overwhelming public support. His small steps here and there to curtail the war on marijuana may be enough to satisfy some people. But, for many people desiring an end to marijuana prohibition, the Biden administration’s action — as contrasted with its claims — is too little, too late.