Now the next Democrat presidential candidate can't run on "legalize it." Might have to develop real strategy.
Which prospective candidates were you expecting to run on "legalize it"?
US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous
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Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this is a completely fair characterization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_policy_of_the_Biden_a...
Your link does nothing to address OP’s claim. Reclassifying marijuana requires only the stroke of the president’s pen. Biden chose not to do that.
Apparently not, or Trump would have done it earlier, too.
There were investigations into just what reclassification would mean for other regulations, laws and treaties. These were begun during the Biden administration and are now being finished. If you just say "weed's schedule III now", without any other modifications to policy, you'll have confusion over just what that means to a bunch of different federal, state, and local agencies.
Also, you don't want a President just doing things with the stroke of a pen. Actually, that's our biggest problem right now, letting an autocrat piss all over separation of powers as a treat.
Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this is a completely fair characterization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_policy_of_the_Biden_a...
Your link does nothing to address OP’s claim. Reclassifying marijuana requires only the stroke of the president’s pen. Biden chose not to do that.
Biden didn't want to reclassify it because there's really no point in reclassifying. It's still illegal to possess for recreational use and requires a controlled substance prescription from a doctor.
It would take a law to remove it from the control substances scheduling, no president can do that. Which is also why Trump didn't do it. (It's now schedule 3 instead of schedule 1)
Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think this is a completely fair characterization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_policy_of_the_Biden_a...
Your link does nothing to address OP’s claim. Reclassifying marijuana requires only the stroke of the president’s pen. Biden chose not to do that.
No, it requires more than a stroke of the pen, and the stroke of the pen that was required happened in 2024. It's been DEA foot-dragging ever since, which is what Trump's executive order last year addressed.
Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am hippy among hippies and the only people who ever talk about it as a 'cure all' are the people really far gone. People who think crystals can cure sicknesses. Those type of people. It's literally a god send to people with stomach problems, it can help you go to sleep but I would bet everything I own it's not as deep and good a sleep as sleeping sober. I've heard people say the ointments can help with certain pain…
You say it's just people who are "really far gone", but when I look at the type of marketing at CBD stores, it's marketed for nearly everything, so I suspect a lot more people are falling for this than you might suspect. Plus, any individual doesn't have to believe it's a "cure-all" - they just have to believe it cures their specific random ailment. I've seen it marketed to help with sleep, anxiety (despite it causin…
I think there exists enough evidence of placebo benefits that it shouldn't be all that surprising. Moreover, regardless of any study or anecdote to the contrary, Those people will exist and see actual benefits, realized or not.
Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous
#56Is it less dangerous though? I was a heavy user for a year and it thoroughly destabilized my life and really negatively impacted my mental health. The funny thing is recalling how much of a cannabis advocate I was at the time, too.
Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, you'll never get it to where people aren't going to become addicts to these things. You can only reduce harms by regulation and social support. Gambling is a decent example of where we've lost touch with this in the last decade. In my state, it used to be that if you wanted to play games of pure chance, you had to go to a physical casino, present an ID, and be subject to the rules and regulations of th…
Yes, previous regulation was built on the principle that we actually did understand the risks, as rational adults, and so we would have reasonable protections but in for people around those. Today's regulation seems to be dependent on the principle of not talking about risks at all.
Today's regulations are solely "deregulation". Corporations are racing to maximize exploitation before the deregulation snaps back to reality.
Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous
#58Regulating human consumption of anything that grows from the ground is absolutely ridiculous. It’s an affront to the natural order. At the minimum, nobody should have the ability to tell me I can’t buy seeds and grow a plant for my own personal consumption.
> Regulating human consumption of anything that grows from the ground is absolutely ridiculous.
As always, it depends. While I agree wrt marijuana, everyone would be an opiate addict if poppy wasn't regulated - it's just that good.
Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous
#59This is ultimately a good thing, but as a country we also need to talk about the effects of cannabis use on neurodivergent folks. Its not as harmful as other drugs but also isn't really a good coping mechanism. Especially if you're neurodivergent and deal with depression. What I've seen being in/out of partial hospitalization programs is that people just don't realize that heavy cannabis is actually causing/prolongin…
There's a general and larger question than just "weed for autists" that needs to be discussed - and it touches on large amounts of the population and "freedoms". We've seen from the gambling legalization, drug legalization, and even things like loot boxes, etc, that there is a subset of the population who just cannot handle these things at a level most people would consider "responsible". We last had this nation-wide…
12 Step recovery and adjacent programs fill this niche quite well, and new communities are popping up all the time to deal with more modern addictions, like internet/technology addiction.
I'm sober and have been in that world for several years now, and the most important (and hardest) part of getting sober was accepting that I had a problem and needed help. Macro policy decisions can help with access to an extent, but addicts fundamentally cannot make better decisions for themselves until they first realize they have a problem. And as prohibition taught us, once the demand is there, it can't just be regulated away.
Re: US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous
#60Only cannabis that is prescribed medically or in an FDA-approved product: > Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday changed the classifications of products containing marijuana that are covered by the Food and Drug Administration or that have received a state medical-marijuana licence. They will move from a Schedule I narcotic like heroin to a Schedule III drug - on par with Tylenol with codeine. > He also c…
Still boggles my mind the previous administration had the power to do that and did nothing.
They did. Biden did the "right" thing by starting a 4 years long re-certifying process. That's how "locked down" marijuana was... It was in the same class as heroin. You cant just "sign a piece of paper". (And its worth remembering hemp/marijuana has been locked down for literal centuries for silly reason. First because it was affecting the rope industry, and then later as a tool to suppress minorities and hippies and the counter-culture anti-vietnam movement in the 60's. Cant have black panthers running around with guns, But how can we criminalize them? Well... you make something they all do illegal.... like smoking weed. There's a reason the incarceration for weed-related offenses is VASTLY BLACK.
I mean... you can just EO this.... but there's rules you're SUPPOSED to follow. Biden did that.
This is simply Trump reaping the rewards of that effort without (of course) giving any acknowledgement to Biden.
Oh and BTW, why didn't Trump do this in his FIRST administration in 2016-2020?
Oh, and remind me which party consistently voted AGAINST rescheduling over the past 30 years?
The private prison industry is affected by this HARD. When you deregulate, all those marijuana criminals (who are mostly black btw) go away. Thats less heads in jail, which is less money to the private prison corporations. My guess is now that this current administration is sending immigrants and americans to immigrant concentration camps, their headcount will be a wash when the marijuana convictions fade away.
And guess which party the private prison industry donates to?
Ruling by executive order is fundamentally incompatible with democracy.