Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday called on the federal government to move “as quickly as possible” to change the way it officially classifies marijuana, saying that “nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed.”
“I cannot emphasize enough that they need to get to it as quickly as possible,” Harris said. “We need to have a resolution based on their findings and their assessment. This issue is stark when one considers the fact that on the schedule currently, marijuana is considered as dangerous as heroin ― as dangerous as heroin ― and more dangerous than fentanyl, which is absurd, not to mention patently unfair.”
Marijuana is currently listed as a Schedule 1 drug by the Drug Enforcement Administration. That classification designates it one of the most dangerous drugs possible, with no medicinal uses. Other substances in the same category include heroin, ecstasy and LSD. Marijuana advocates have been pushing for years for the federal government to either reschedule marijuana to a different category or deschedule it entirely.
Lemmy sees something good happen:
“Not good enough!”
We all know it should have happened before, but dismissing that the vice president just publicly called for this is silly
Biden campaigned on rescheduling it so this is just nakedly trying to boost their pre-election popularity. They could’ve done this day one. They didn’t. They won’t.
Web archive of Biden’s campaign site, September 2019: http://web.archive.org/web/20190723224533/https://joebiden.com/justice/
Decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions. Biden believes no one should be in jail because of cannabis use. As president, he will decriminalize cannabis use and automatically expunge prior convictions. And, he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes, leave decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states, and reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.
I’ll drop this here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahsinclair/2024/01/18/dea-considers-rescheduling-cannabis-what-this-means-for-us-and-global-reform/?sh=2ce8efef743f
Note the date. This is the final step in rescheduling marijauna.
And look at this. Pardons, wow: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/12/22/a-proclamation-on-granting-pardon-for-the-offense-of-simple-possession-of-marijuana-attempted-simple-possession-of-marijuana-or-use-of-marijuana/
Biden: Holds the trump card that is almost guaranteed to get him reelected
Yall: WhY dIdN’t He UsE iT sOoNeR
He started the work in 2022. You think he just started it? Did you not read the links I provided?
I didn’t say he just started. Thanks for putting words in my mouth. I said he knows that if he made weed legal too early the stoners would forget about it and potentially not vote.
Playing the trump card right before elections? Everyone is in a super high (lol) and is super in the mood to vote.
Cannabis prohibition is still harming the communities it was designed to disrupt.
But none of the people in those communities matter. Let them needlessly suffer for our stupid timing games.
I also never said it was the best course of action for the betterment of people. Just politically. Which I don’t agree with but understand
But please, keep painting me as terrible
The problem here is that this isn’t even a consideration.
Obama campaigned on this so it’s been 12 years they’ve fucked around on it. People need to stop defending the Democratic party for being corrupt pieces of shit.
They’ve been “calling for it” since Biden campaign. And reschedule? It should be descheduled.
And the DEA is actively working on it, which just so happens to be the final step in rescheduling a drug.
I work in the space industry and this just reeks of the “hurry up and wait” that I live in. If the right pressure was there, it’d be rescheduled already. I’m 50/50 on if they are actually working on it or if feet are being dragged due to institutional friction.
They’re doing as little as possible to say they’re working on it.
I hate it here for that reason. With this being the last option, I’ve reverted to Google News, NYTimes and SF Chronicle apps. Lemmy’s inability to feel joy has helped me ditch social media most of the time.
Reddit very seriously had the same problem.
The under current of negativity seems a bit stronger here though imo.
I guess when you have a huge portion of posters that self-selected to leave a platform in protest you get population predisposed to protesting and complaining about things.
It gets a bit tiring to hear people see incremental change but shit on it because it’s not perfect or “it should have happened sooner”. I wonder if these people would ever be happy with anything?
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. If they get this rescheduled that would be a huge win.
They won’t. They’ve been fucking around on this for at least 12 years.
I hope they do just to shut up a bunch of people up but that part definitely won’t happen.
That’s a poor attitude.
You’d know about those I suppose.
Oh sure, every 4 years Lucy comes out with the football and taunts you to take a run at it and I’m the one not being realistic. It’s total horseshit to disappear on an issue every 4 years except when you think it might help you in an election to wave it around.
It’s not “Lemmy sees something good happen”; nothing good has happened. The same platitudes have been trotted out for the 78th time. But maybe this time…!
It isn’t good enough… we have fucking nothing and there’s been chat about this for close to 2 decades.
The words of a politician are not accomplishments.
If it ever gets descheduled, it’ll be an accomplishment. I’m not going to treat announcements as accomplishments.
Public discourse from a sitting executive politician represents progress. It is not enough yet, but it is progress. In years past such statements would have been massively disruptive, and via speech like this the topic is being normalized.
It’s not enough yet. We arenf done
Stop expecting me to believe that politicians’ lies are progress just because you believe them.
It’s not an accomplishment until it’s accomplished.
Just because you don’t understand the power of normalized discourse doesn’t mean I have some obligation to you.
I’m just telling you how reality works.
Edit im proud to hear more discussion of climate, LGBT, drug decrim and other issues, at increasingly public and increasingly executive levels.
I know the difference between hot air and accomplishments. You’re not going to gaslight me into accepting the former as the latter. All you’re doing is convincing me that you prefer words to accomplishments.
50 years ago a woman, non-white politician wouldn’t have been a common thing. Part of how we got to where we are today is via public, popularized discourse.
The same occurs in this article and the speech that lead to it.
It doesn’t mean the world is changing in an active sense, but it does mean the conversation is happening. This is part of the power of executive office.
I’m sorry you had to learn about this from me.
We lost roe because we only talked about codifying it.
We GOT roe because we discussed it.
Edit auto