The president can order agencies to reschedule it, which makes it defacto legal in a lot of states, and means federal employees in states where it’s legal can use, including military.
She should do that asap, because the fight to actually legalize is a lot harder.
I don’t want to see her say it needs to be legalized and then refuse to take any step thats not the hardest
Biden already started that process to move it to schedule 3. It’s been moving through slowly but it’s got a public hearing on December 2nd
The public comments were overwhelmingly in favor of full deschedule/legalization, but all he’s pushing for is reschedule to 3, which means they’ll probably go to 2 because fuck you that’s why. Hopefully Harris can lean into it a little harder than Biden has.
As a senator Harris introduced bills that would’ve fully legalized it. Meanwhile I don’t think Biden ever publicly said he wanted full legalization
I think there’s pretty good odds she would go further than Biden in executive action alone
Biden was calling it a gateway drug just before entering the office of president. I don’t believe he’s evolved personally at all. Policy, which is kind of weak, may be another thing. But I don’t think the man sees any value in marijuana, for anybody.
Is anyone actually surprised that Biden is extremely anti-narcotics given his son’s battle with drug addiction?
Harris doesn’t have the same baggage. If she were at the helm, I think she’d follow through.
But that’s just the point. Part of marijuana adoption is getting away from worse drugs. There is plenty of supporting data at this point. The sooner people see this they’ll see where the bar ought to be set. This is only one example of course.
One of the best ways to get through withdrawal symptoms is Marijuana. When I was getting off some pretty rough mental meds, Marijuana allowed me to keep going.
Yeah at best Biden probably only is in favor of it for textile products and maybe CBD derivatives for medical use. Which mind you is still a massive improvement over damned near every president since it was putlawed but still a woefully insufficient, a solid summary of Biden now that I think about it.
He’s too old. Society has moved beyond him on this and it’s an example of why we need to start electing younger people.
Here’s hoping!
Plus this post is literally about her going to the “All The Smokes” podcast and calling for legal weed there. Could not imagine Biden doing
all he’s pushing for is reschedule to 3, which means they’ll probably go to 2 because fuck you that’s why
I figure you’re partially joking but they can’t really make it 2. The HHS recommendation was 3 and even the DEA kind of has to agree even if they don’t want to. It would have been super controversial to do something else, they’re mainly supposed to follow it through with the rulemaking process unless they’re willing to make a serious case. And even then it would probably be to leave it where it is.
One of the theories going around as to why they added the hearing is that they wanted to take the heat off themselves for the call they’ve made by really drawing out the public consultation. Like people will be mad at them for following the recommendation so they want to make a big show of the fact they’re listening to concerns etc.
Hopefully Harris can take some stronger action or legalize through executive order or something. Schedule III is better but it’s then in the same class as ketamine. No judgement of people who like ketamine but COME ON
Interesting, didn’t know that about the process, TIL. So am I reading you right that they’re effectively locked into reschedule to 3 no matter what now due to the HHS recommendation? Or do they still have the option to just not change a thing as well?
Yeah my understanding is that since HHS said “the science suggests it should be in 3,” the DEA would have a bit of a challenge making any other rule. The schedules (theoretically) tell you what the addiction risk and medical value of a substance is, with lower risk & more effective medicine being the least restricted. So since HHS made that determination and the DEA are not scientists, it would be kind of wild for them to try to argue with that.
I think technically they could propose anything they like, but 2 would never go through because there’s no basis for it, and I think even keeping it in 1 would be a difficult sell with Biden having called for the review and the recommendation being what it was. Plus as you said most public comments (and experts) said they didn’t go far enough.
Honestly I think they’re stuck. They probably can’t just come out and recommend descheduling (and going by public statements probably don’t want to) but the current position is untenable. So they have to just sign up for the “better but nobody is especially happy” option HHS gave them
One thing I wish I understood more was whether Harris could just legalize through an executive order. Biden (and now Harris) said nobody should go to jail for weed but schedule III does not solve that problem at all.
The classification problem will lead to the DEA gaining control of all the dispensaries in every state.
Maybe I’m being alarmist, but rescheduling Marijuana is worse than leaving things alone. Oversight by the DEA is the wrong way to go.
Yeah I wouldn’t say alarmist but this is likely a non issue. Under the current system, every legal state is breaking federal law in a bunch of ways, but the DEA and other agencies have not acted. Technically putting it in schedule III would mean it could be treated like other substances in that schedule, available only with FDA oversight, but that is not likely. Basically everything has been totally hands off so far, so it’s very unlikely that the government reducing the level of control of cannabis would lead to agencies increasing their control.
The biggest threat at the moment imo is a Trump presidency, but based on his comments about Florida’s ballot initiative, his “change with the wind” opinion is currently also in favor of not sending people to jail for it.
The public comments were overwhelmingly in favor of full deschedule/legalization, but all he’s pushing for is reschedule to 3, which means they’ll probably go to 2 because fuck you that’s why
The Lesser Evil Party in a nutshell 😮💨
Granted, it’s of course still a MUCH lesser evil than the American Fascist Party, but fucking HELL! Your very bleak guess is probably the best case scenario with these fuckers!
Schedule 3 for weed is a joke when Xanax and Ambien are schedule 4
It’s moving slowly because the DEA and police want it to stay illegal because that’s where half their funding comes from
Rescheduling is a lot more complicated than that. The president can not just wave a wand and make it legal. Congress could pass a law doing so, but they are not going to do that. The other way is via the Controlled Substances Act which is, to put it mildly, is a cluster fuck.
In a nutshell, administrative rescheduling begins when an actor—the Secretary of Health and Human Services or an outside interested party—files a petition with the Attorney General or he initiates the process himself. The Attorney General forwards the request to the HHS Secretary asking for a scientific and medical evaluation and recommendation, as specified by 23 USC 811(b-c). HHS, via the Food and Drug Administration conducts an assessment and returns a recommendation to the Attorney General “in a timely manner.” The Attorney General, often through the Drug Enforcement Administration, conducts its own concurrent and independent review of the evidence in order to determine whether a drug should be scheduled, rescheduled, or removed from control entirely—depending on the initial request in the petition.
If the Attorney General finds sufficient evidence that a change in scheduling is warranted he then initiates the first stages of a standard rulemaking process, consistent with the Administrative Procedures Act. During rulemaking and consistent with Executive Order 12866, if the White House—through the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of information and Regulatory Affairs—determines the rule to be “significant,” it will conduct a regulatory review of the proposed rule—a very likely outcome given the criteria in the EO.
FYI, Biden already initiated this process to reschedule marijuana in 2022. At this point, it has been reviewed and the Attorney General has submitted a rule change to the DEA. They will have a public comment period which they will no doubt drag out as long as possible. If approved, marijuana will be reclassified at the same level as steroids (schedule III). It is disappointing that Biden only requested changing the schedule rather than descheduling it all together. Not ideal, but a hell of a lot better than now.
So technically, the president could order the people he is in charge of to deschedule the drug and to do it immediately by everyone agreeing that the change is not significant.
If they refuse he could just keep firing people until someone agrees.
Nope, the president doesn’t have the legal authority to give that order. He has the legal authority to order them to consider the question, which is the process that’s going on.
Right but he he has the power to fire them, or order someone else to fire them.
The law requires certain time frames for comment periods and he cannot just ignore those. He also cannot just fire anyone he wants. That is one of the things Project 2025 includes. Giving the president to fire any federal employee at will is a bad idea.
The only immediate thing he might do is issue an executive order making Marijuana a very low priority offense and telling DoJ to direct limited enforcement and prosecution resources elswhere.
Well I’m sure the persons in question will be highly motivated to follow through and expedite the process with seal team six accompanying them to work every day
It is disappointing that Biden only requested changing the schedule rather than descheduling it all together. Not ideal, but a hell of a lot better than now.
Which is actually the reasonable thing to do here. Marijuana is not something that doesn’t have brain-altering side effects. It has pretty clear effects which could impair driving, etc - It doesn’t need to be descheduled completely; that would be asinine.
Is alcohol scheduled? Is it regulated? I feel like morons are making excuses for control because it’s got stigma. You know the real reason weed is a schedule 1?
I’d love for alcohol to be scheduled too. Make 'em all Schedule V. I’m tired of seeing “First DUI” cases get slaps on the wrist and a driving course.
Take your prohibitionist bullshit and shove it puritan. Wanna lower DUIs then advocate for expansions to public transit.
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Greetings from europe, I fucking love trains. Trains are the best. Would recommend trains every day.
You’re weak, and you need substances to abuse in order to continue on your pathetic existence.
There are plenty of reasons to drink a beer other than not having the “steel to handle the real world” on your own.
For instance, having to deal with annoying pricks like yourself.
Aw did a strike a nerve puritan, sorry to break it to ya but im one of my clean kinsmen fun thing about extreme genetic drug resistance ya dont feel shit to it. Alcohol taste like shit as well, closest I get is sweet cider.
I just aint into telling folks what to do, so long as it aint too damaging to other folks. Plus im bound to the bloodlust of mine kin not the alcoholism of mine ancestors. Regardless what you see as a moral failure I see as what is folks enjoying themselves. Sure it can be self destructive but whomst am I to judge I enjoy fighting to a utterly unhealthy degree.
So in summary can ya go feed thineself to a Joshua Tree theys gettin’ hungry.
Wow. Just wow.
Public education, impound, and jail time for DUI have had the most impact. You don’t need to schedule alcohol to do that. And you don’t need the age 21 drinking law.
Driving under the influence is completely seperate and would still be illegal. Same as it is for alcohol
Holy shit the NSA, FBI and CIA will finallyl get competent, weed smoking engineers.
Canadian here.
It’s been fully legal for… 5 years? We haven’t fallen apart yet!
There’s some people working on that, but they aren’t the stoner type.
Last year Michigan received about 290 million in weed taxes, around 90 went to municipalities and county governments, 100 million to schools, and 100 million to roads.
It’s crazy to me how cheap it is. Like, they could double the taxes and it would still feel incredibly affordable when compared to alcohol.
What are the prices in Michigan? One of the complaints in Colorado is that the prices (for those without red cards, anyway) were set so high that some people were still resorting to the black market.
Michigan is dirt cheap. $80 ounces are pretty common. $40 for an ounce of shake if you avoid border towns like Monroe. Even the Monroe dispensaries are cheaper than the Ohio ones that just opened, so everyone in NW Ohio still travels north for it since they dave moeny.
It was cheap and high quality in Colorado for the first few years, just long enough to kill off the black market. Now it’s not as strong and has doubled in price. I only do edibles so I can’t speak to the plant quality but the THC content per serving gets lower every year it seems.
I personally think it’s a good thing. Some of that stuff was fucking military grade just because they could.
If you shop around you can get joints for one dollar. Way cheaper than the black market
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I’ll believe it when it happens. I can only get my hopes up so many times
Saying, “we need to” is about as noncommittal as not saying anything at all. That’s like my girlfriend pointing out that the kitchen is a mess and me saying “yeah we really need to do the dishes”.
She has no control over it, the only thing she can do is what Biden did, ask them to investigate it and reschedule it. The executive branch does not make laws. That’s on the Senate/Congress. The number of people arrested for marijuana by the federal government isn’t the number of people in prison/jail for it. They are/and will be arrested by states. A law must be written to superseed state laws on marijuana… As the president cannot pardon people from state laws.
Vote for new senators/Congress members… The only 1 the president puts in place is the Vice President in the Senate.
I would like to reiterate that A LOT of the entrenched Cannabis industry assholes that run the business are pro-Trump. I’m talking well over a majority of the most psychotic Trump supporters I know are directly involved in the interstate Cannabis market. They are even more prone to conspiracy brainrot than the average Yall’Qaeda folks.
I’m sounding the alarm for the millionth time that the Cannabis industry attracts some of the most degenerate, unethical, fucked up people into positions of power. I’ve said this like 10 times on Lemmy at least, and I always get downvoted into oblivion even though I have more direct experience with the Cannabis industry than 99.9999% of people on earth.
Trust me when I say a lot of these people are fully fucked in the head, and giving them legitimacy is a problem. While I am still 100% pro-legalization, I am also aware of the dark side of that equation as well. There is a lot of exploitation and evil in the industry. It needs to be unionized, and there needs to be common sense regulation that is not captured by the corporations within the industry itself.
Source: Worked in the black, gray, and recreational Cannabis industry for 14 years. Have directly facilitated the sale of tens of millions of dollars worth of Cannabis. Worked with thousands of different people, and hundreds of different vendors over that time.
I’m sounding the alarm for the millionth time that the Cannabis industry attracts some of the most degenerate, unethical, fucked up people into positions of power
I worked at a delivery dispensary for like 2 months in 2021 or so:
- our main product was one which the owner also owned, but only under the table through a kid of his, so we’d regularly get weird orders that didn’t match what we were getting in product, and heavily push the garbage house brand for him. Pretty sure money laundering was happening
- the safe was regularly left unlocked and open. The safe was in the cage (where the weed is) which was also unlocked and open. So was the back door ~10ft away from that, and the roll-up ~20ft from that. Any random homeless person could easily have sprinted in, yoinked money, weed, and bolted. Well, until:
- right after I quit the guy who hired me (the “co owner”) took 10k cash out of the safe AND the wife of the girl in accounting and dipped, idk if they ever found that guy actually
- they absolutely were trafficking significant amounts of hard drugs as well
If I told you stories about some of the things I’ve seen first hand over the years, or heard about from associates you wouldn’t even believe me.
Biden promised the same thing and then didn’t do shit. They clearly like to dangle this carrot without acting on it so they can continue to leverage it for votes.
Decriminalization is not the same as legalization. In terms of legalization, he only supported legalization for medical marijuana which is the process he started. He actually pledged to move it to schedule 2 but has started the process to move it to schedule 3. That process is getting closer for what it’s worth. The DEA has really dragged it out but it’s nearly at the end with the public hearing in December
From the source that politico links to
he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes
[…]
reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.
Copying my comment from elsewhere
The DEA has really dragged it out
Color me surprised. It’s not like they’ve made millions by confiscating people’s possessions in the name of “the drug war”. Oh wait, that’s exactly what they’ve been doing since they were established. Seriously, fuck the DEA.
Yea it’s still full of “is going to” and “process getting closer” stuff. He had 4 full years and didn’t do anything until halfway through his last year specifically so the next election cycle could continue to have a carrot to dangle. That was 3 more years of people having their lives permanently ruined.
The existing law outlines the complicated process. Biden cannot do it instantly. Here’s an overview of the process that’s already been done so far
Now the rule has been proposed so we’re at the end of that graph. That’s what I mean when I say we’re close. Here’s the actual rule making procedure to do the rescheduling
Additionally, it’s worth noting that earlier, dem senate leader was also perusing a legislative path until it was clear they couldn’t get the votes. Hence later executive action
Your infographic doesn’t mention the DEA at all. I guess Biden was just asking them because he wanted to waste time and run out the clock.
Did you even read the previous comment
You should learn how the drug schedule system works. The president can’t just snap his fingers and make it legal.
They’re immune from persecution for official acts, though
Demand it be rescheduled, send the military to the houses of those responsible, shoot one for every hour it’s not done
The president is immune from prosecution for any official acts. There’s nothing that can stop them from being persecuted for them.
He could absolutely put out a memo saying “if a DEA agent makes a weed arrest they will be fired” as an officer action. And besides, democrats presidents have been promising to reschedule for coming on 20 years now, the process can’t be 20-years complicated.
Actually up until about a decade or so ago it had been Republicans who were promising to reschedule weed. The Democrats had been firmly against it until very very recently.
Republicans were promising no such thing.
Then why are they even talking about it? They haven’t the power to do anything about it, so stop claiming you will do it.
Oh wait! Making empty promises fools idiots into voting for them.
Works every time!! I’m 40, I thought legalization was right around the corner 20 years ago.
Hey, we did it up in Canada. It’s 100% viable for the US to do the same. I can’t say for sure the dems will or won’t but it’s not unrealistic for them to follow through.
Harris is from Oakland. She gets it. There are nice dispensaries everywhere in Oakland. Even in very family-friendly or affluent parts of town.
You do understand she is the one that was jailing black men on possession charges because it made her look good, right?
Our policy was that no one with a marijuana conviction for mere possession could do any (jail time) at all,” said Paul Henderson, who led narcotics prosecutions for several years under Harris. Defendants arrested for the lowest-level possession would typically be referred to drug treatment programs instead of being charged, and weightier charges for marijuana sales would routinely be pleaded down to less serious ones, he said.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/11/kamala-harris-prosecuting-marijuana-cases/
Ok. What’s her plan?
So far all we know is she might do more than nothing
She might, yes. I’d still like to see a plan. Hopefully one will be forthcoming soon.
I’m guessing there will be no plan
Perhaps. I’m notoriously pessimistic about Democrats actually wanting to do things that don’t involve capitulating to Republicans, but she just announced it. I’ll give her some time to put out a plan before assuming it’s just an empty campaign promise like Biden’s was.
It’s getting to where if democrats keep milking this issue, they are going to snatch defeat from jaws of victory by pussyfooting around a highly popular issue.
I definitely would not become a republican just because of this issue, but there are many people who see politics as silly football teams. I can see Republicans winning and election because “bro, the republicans support weeeeeeeeed, man”
It’s baffling how uninformed so many large groups of people are when it comes to news and politics
It’s getting to where if democrats keep milking this issue, they are going to snatch defeat from jaws of victory by pussyfooting around a highly popular issue.
Yes, that is familiar behavior from Democrats.
I think to say something broadly popular with the voting base and then forget about it after the election. Decent plan TBH.
Same is true with health care, minimum wage, sick leave for workers, there are numerous issues that large majority’s on both sides support that nothing will be done about because billionaires and corporate donors. She is a neoliberal after all.
There’s a couple of different ways she could do it. She could start the descheduling process (doable with existing law, but DEA slow it down like they are with Biden trying to move it to schedule 3). Or if there’s a democratic trifecta, she could also push for legislation to legalize it
She did push for legislation like that in 2018 when she was a senator
I’m aware of the avenues by which it could be legalized. I asked what Harris’ plan is. If she hasn’t released one yet, fine. She only just announced it. But I would like some specifics from her campaign at some point, because Biden’s efforts have been disappointing to everyone who considers Biden to be fallible.
Biden never said he supported full legalization as far as I am aware, so it’s not surprising he didn’t go as far as he could.
She just made the announcement for the first time in this campaign, so not stated that yet, but she has pushed for legalization via legislation in the past as a senator and called for faster action for the DEA on rescheduling as VP
In other areas, Walz and Harris have already given plans for passing legislation to make banking access easier for legal states and helping veterans get access to medical marijuana in the VA
She just made the announcement for the first time in this campaign, so not stated that yet, but she has pushed for legalization via legislation in the past as a senator and called for faster action for the DEA on rescheduling as VP
In fairness, she pushed for that legislation in 2018 when Trump was president. I’ve seen Democrats introduce a lot of things when they know they stand no chance of passing. I hope a plan will be forthcoming. At the moment, we have a campaign promise.
In other areas, Walz and Harris have already given plans for passing legislation to make banking access easier for legal states and helping veterans get access to medical marijuana in the VA
This, however, is actually reassuring. Thank you.
He absolutely promised to fully decriminalize. Instead all we got was a committee to look into looking into considering reducing the scheduling of cannabis. It was an empty promise, like every democrat before him because if they actually did something they wouldn’t be able to keep dangling the carrot for votes. Source: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/promise/1529/decriminalize-marijuana/
Decriminalization is not the same as legalization. In terms of legalization, he only supported legalization for medical marijuana which is the process he started. He actually pledged to move it to schedule 2 but has started the process to move it to schedule 3. That process is getting closer for what it’s worth. The DEA has really dragged it out but it’s nearly at the end with the public hearing in December
From the source that politico links to
he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes
[…]
reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.
So he promised to decriminalize, but did nothing to make good on that promise until most of his term in office had passed, and that’s why we aren’t done with the lengthy process to get there yet. Your answers throughout the discussion seem to keep glossing over the bolded part. (unless I have some misunderstanding, which is possible)
And that is the part that makes me doubtful Kamala will be any different.
He actually started the reschedule process in 2022, but before that there were attempts by dems to do legalization via legislation but in the senate that didn’t end up getting enough votes.
Rescheduling via legislation is more direct and skips the lengthy process describe in the law for executive action. The president is not able to immediately snap their fingers and reschedule. People within the DEA / other agencies have showed it down since 2022. It’s at the last stages now after the public comment hearing in December. For what it’s worth, as VP Harris did try to call on the agencies to speed up said process but she has no direct power to do so
Wait a second, when someone said Biden should do more you replied that Biden can’t do more,
But now you are saying Biden didn’t do more because he didn’t want to.
Something’s not adding up.
I think dems are using this issue the same as they did with abortion.
That’s why women are dying right now in many states, because politicians are dangling carrots with no intention of actually doing their jobs
Remember when Biden “signaled” he would be a one term president in his first campaign, then proceeded to put the entire country at risk by running again?
Those stories were his aides saying he was considering he might not run again. He never said it publicly.
Here Harris is directly stating publicly she wants it legal federally. It’s not a new stance for her. As a senator in 2018 she co-sponsored legislation to make it legal federally
No. It was his words. His words he said. With his mouth.
He never explicitly said he would be a one term president or necessarily saw himself as one. I looked back to double check again, and he only made cagey statements about seeing himself as the transition between generations. A two term president could still qualify for that. The more explicit one term stuff was from his aides saying he was considering that
Should he have just been more direct, yes, but what he said was nothing as explicit as directly stating we need marijuana it to be legalized
and he only made cagey statements about seeing himself as the transition between generations
What the fuck else do you think it means to “signal” something in politics?
However, unlike that Harris isn’t making a cagey statement here. She’s directly stating that marijuana should be federally legalized
Really the title of this article shouldn’t be signals
Thats fair. This is more than a “signal”. What people attributed to Biden (you can dig through the articles of the day; it was very clearly taken as a signal he would remain a 1 term president) was a “signal” though, in the pure sense of it. Its a kind of political maneuver that could be a head fake, could be real, you can figure it out later.
So you have a source for that then?
Assuming you have are asking in good faith and simply have the memory of a gold fish, or lack the ability to simply google things yourself:
The Associated Press reported that Biden said in October that he wouldn’t promise to serve just one term but that he wasn’t necessarily committed to running for another four years.
“I feel good and all I can say is, watch me, you’ll see,” he told the AP at the time. “It doesn’t mean I would run a second term. I’m not going to make that judgment at this moment.”
You should really read your sources.
Holy shit you should be fucking so embarrassed. That link literally says, right in the first line, that it is just “reportedly” it’s not him being quoted. It literally confirms what the other poster said and absolutely contradicts what you said.
It’s okay to be wrong, but fuck man, you shouldn’t of read at least the first line of your sources to make sure they support your claims when you submit them. That’s just mind numbingly dumb.
Nowhere in this article Biden says he will Serve only one term. He basically said that it’s an option - nothing more.
It’s like some one is paying you not to get it.
Believe it when I see it.
god i wish we would do the same across europe
So far it’s just a campaign promise. I wouldn’t envy us yet. She made a career out of putting people in jail for MJ.
I haven’t heard that, do you have a source? My understanding is that she particularly went after violent crimes while showing leniency and seeking alternatives to incarceration towards non-violent offenses during her time as a prosecutor.
I haven’t heard that, do you have a source?
I went looking for one, and it seems not as cut and dried as I thought.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kamala-harris-record-marijuana-prosecutor-173249390.html
But it is fair to talk about Harris’ complex relationship with marijuana.
As a senator, Harris championed marijuana decriminalization and eventually legalization. She signed Senator Cory Booker’s marijuana legalization bill in 2017, and she also introduced her own bill to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level.
But as an attorney general, her record is much more complicated. Harris oversaw roughly 1,956 misdemeanor and felony convictions for “marijuana possession, cultivation, or sale,” according to Reuters. However, defense attorneys and prosecutors in Harris’ office told Mercury News that most of the people convicted during this period did not serve jail time. And convictions for marijuana did go down under Harris’ tenure as district attorney.
At the end of the day, calling Harris out on her previous role in convicting folks for marijuana crimes isn’t entirely unfair. But it’s also pretty misleading to pretend that she pulled a switcheroo on the issue just in time for the midterms.
This article spins it slightly differently, IMO, but still not solidly stating what I believed to be true. Bold added by me.
As district attorney in San Francisco, however, she had enforced cannabis laws and opposed legalized use for adults. She defended its usage for medicinal purposes, but her prosecutors convicted over 1,900 people on cannabis-related charges. When she was running for reelection as attorney general, she opposed legalizing marijuana for recreational use, which was supported by her GOP opponent.
That aside, it remains true that at this point it’s nothing but a campaign promise.
While I don’t agree with the criminalization of marijuana, it’s really rough when it comes to a prosecutor and a law they may not like. Step back and ask the question, “should an Attorney General (AG) be allowed to not prosecute laws they don’t agree with?” You might be willing to say, “yes” for laws you also don’t agree with; but, what happens when it starts to cover laws you want to see enforced? Should “prosecutorial discretion” effectively allow an AG a complete veto power over the laws as passed by the State and Federal legislatures?
As much as it may suck for the person in that position, it would be really bad for democracy to allow that sort of power. We empower an AG to enforce the law as written. But, we also expect that they will enforce the law as written. So ya, I would expect that Harris (or her office), as AG, prosecuted marijuana cases. That’s really what the whole “rule of law” thing means. It means the laws, as written, being enforced on all people. And it’s up to us, the people, through our representatives to get that law changed.
And hopefully, this will work out to be more than an empty campaign promise. Though, I don’t plan to hold my breath.
AGs choose which laws to enforce or not. That’s generally their job. They choose how to distribute resources available by selecting which cases to pursue.
It’s common for them to not pursue cases. It’s more common for them to pass up on pursuing a case against someone with wealth. In that case it’s more likely they’ll waste resources on someone who can lawyer up, draw the process out, and often get the case thrown out.
Possession cases are easy and seen as being hard on crime which is politically motivated as it gets you reelected by conservatives and liberals alike.
They have that power and use it frequently to disservice the poors/eccentrics while ignoring the transgressions of the wealthy.
Trump told the crowd, “One rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out, and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know, it’ll end immediately.”
You see, we shoot them in the head to send a message. /s
I think we should start adopting all of Trump’s shitty day-one policies.
- We win, the purge starts on domestic terrorists for a day, terrorism will ‘end immediately’
- Kamala gets to be dictator day one only, like how trump says. She deports all republicans to the nations of their ancestors.
- Courts packed with 29 more SCOTUS justices.
- Build a wall between Texas and the US
If all of this is fine for Trump to do, then why not Kambala??
She deports all republicans to the nations of their ancestors.
Believe me, they don’t want these people either. However, my understanding is Russia has open arms for disenfranchised Republicans. Please, don’t let me stop you. No taksies backsies though.
She deports all republicans to the nations of their ancestors.
😂 🤣
If no one is being harmed and all parties have the access to information to know enough about whether or not to consent, and if all parties do consent.
Nothing wrong is being done.
I sure hope so. The notion that there still are not free states when it comes to cannabis is just beyond ridiculous.
Shit. I love that she came out for it but this means the race is closer than we thought. Fuxing vote people!
