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Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

whitehouse.gov

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Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#231

Post by presidentender »

arrowleaf wrote: post #229
loeg wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: alcohol, there are people with Minor in Possession charges on their records. It would be good to expunge those, too.

I've always taken it for granted that stuff like MIPs on your record get sealed or expunged once you hit 21. IMO it's silly to have it be a mark on your record even temporarily, but insane to me that some states don't automatically expunge misdemeanors for kids.

My MIP was a factor during the background check for my security clearance in my early 20s. Since then nobody has cared.

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#232

Post by dragonwriter »

torstenvl wrote: post #223
dragonwriter wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why he's singling out military veterans not to receive this pardon. Nothing in the text of the pardon does that is "singling out" veterans. It doesn't pardon UCMJ violations, but it absolutely includes military veterans with federal civilian convictions (unless they were in unsatisfactory immigration status at the time of the offense.) Not including military offenses is a different thing than sin…

Fine. I don't understand why he's singling out military veterans with military convictions not to receive this pardon. It's significant disparate treatment in a way that precludes a significant benefit from going to a group of people of whom 100% have served this country. EDIT: And no, Parker v. Levy is not a valid justification for this, as the conduct was equally criminalized in both the military and the civilian w…

> I don't understand why he's singling out military veterans with military convictions not to receive this pardon.

There's a fairly consistent throughline in the theory of the law (that gets to the reason there even is a UCMJ in the first place) that military discipline is categorically distinct from civilian criminal law, and under that theory possession of marijuana contrary to military regulations is meaningfully distinct from simple possession in the civilian context.

Its also, to be fair, pretty clear that, clear and crisp as the theory may be, in practice that's more of a statistical difference in significance than a categorical one. But even a statistical difference can, arguably, justify the normal case-by-case approach to clemency rather than a blanket approach.

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#233

Post by chimeracoder »

oooyay wrote: post #206
caslon wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meth is historically misclassified, too. Why are we drawing the line at marijuana? If we lower the scheduling of opioids to Schedule IV, fentanyl usage in the United States would drop almost entirely within a month. Importing clean prescription drugs from other countries would have low enough risk that the reward would be easily met. Odds are, it would also undercut wider organized drug crime. You may find this artic…

First, I don't draw the line at marijuana. Notice how many drugs I didn't list there. Second, stepping down from fent to heroin, which I think is what you're implying, is not going to happen that fast and frankly the way you phrased this whitewashes an entire series of events that happened that gave fentanyl the dominance that it has as a street drug; the prescription pill to fentanyl pipeline is one built from a cos…

OP is technically incorrect that rescheduling alone would solve the fentanyl problem, but not for the reasons you state.

> For one, it's much cheaper than high quality heroin. Second, heroin used to be the dominant drug when people couldn't afford prescription pills. Peoples tolerances on opioids quickly build and some subset of the population were using so much heroin that they could more cheaply inject or smoke fent. Going up that pipeline can happen in months, going down could take years.

Fentanyl is cheaper than heroin because of supply-side constraints: specifically, fentanyl is produced in larger quantities for pharmaceutical purposes, and the illegal markets are structured in a way that promotes the distribution of fentanyl over the distribution of heroin. However, that does not mean that fentanyl is inherently cheaper in an abstract sense. If legal restrictions were lifted, both fentanyl and heroin would be dramatically cheaper than either one is today.

This is, incidentally, another argument in favor of maintenance programs. Almost all of the indirect harms associated with illicit drug use, and many of the direct ones, are a consequence of the legal status and the expense (both financial and nonfinancial) associated with them.

Clinical trials present overwhelming evidence that, when provided with a low-cost, pharmaceutical grade supply of heroin, users are able to hold down stable jobs, maintain permanenent housing, etc., all things that they previously struggled with due to having to spend so much time, effort, and money in order to address what is fundamentally a medical issue for them.

> The same way prescription pills are a pipeline to fent, meth is the final stop in a similar pipeline of stimulants.

This is more or less the "gateway drug" theory, and it's simply incorrect. There is no "pipeline" of stimulants, and to the extent that one can even be argued to exist, methamphetamine is not the "final stop" in one.

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#234

Post by djur »

aaomidi wrote: post #31
codexb wrote: post #7

This will have virtually zero effect. The president only has the power to pardon people convicted or accused of violating federal law and prosecuted in federal court. The problem is that nearly all people arrested for simple possession of marijuana aren't charged under federal law nor prosecuted in federal court. They are charged under state law that similarly outlaws marijuana possession and prosecuted in state cour…

The president can however pardon in states using “emergency powers”. Our constitution does not define the breadth and depth of emergency powers and it would be up for both congress and SCOTUS to decide that the president can’t do that. I would hope that a president would just say fuck it and try this though. As much as I want things to be done “the right way”, I value lives of folks more than my neurodivergent desire…

POTUS: I'm pardoning everybody in your state who has a drug conviction. STATE GOV: No, you aren't. POTUS: You have to let all of those people out of prison. STATE GOV: No, we don't. POTUS: It's an emergency! STATE GOV: No, it isn't.

What next? Send in the army?

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#235

Post by natebc »

ethanbond wrote: post #216
zdragnar wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with blaming Congress is that the harms could be easily mitigated by the DEA changing the scheduling, which was my point. Rumor has it that is in the works, but the fact that it has taken so long starts and ends with the executive office. That said, Congress decriminalizing it entirely is definitely something that is going to take too long, and will also be entirely the fault of Congress.

DEA rescheduling would be the "executive fiat" and is more undo-able than pardons. The DEA is entirely under the control of the executive. So if you want a more permanent solution, the only one is legislative, and that is extremely unlikely to happen even if there were extremely broad public support.

If we can get 2/3 of the state legislatures to agree, and 3/4 of them to ratify we can amend the constitution without Congress via a Constitutional Convention.

Still long odds but we technically don't HAVE to do it with Congress.

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/artic...

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#238

Post by londons_explore »

kstrauser wrote: post #3

I don't use cannabis. If it were to go away tomorrow, my life wouldn't change one bit. I am absolutely thrilled with this blanket pardon. Rephrasing the statement slightly, like: > I am pardoning additional individuals who may continue to experience the unnecessary collateral consequences of a conviction for simple possession of beer, attempted simple possession of beer, or use of beer. and it sounds utterly obvious,…

The counterargument is that these people are punished not for carrying weed, but for breaking the law.

The law could say "nobody shall wear a red tshirt", and I think it would then be morally okay to arrest and punish anyone who continues to wear red tshirts.

Anyone not okay with the red tshirt law can go get the law changed through the usual democratic process. But if they just ignore the law and wear a red tshirt anyway, then punish them.

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#239

Post by firecraker »

kstrauser wrote: post #3

I don't use cannabis. If it were to go away tomorrow, my life wouldn't change one bit. I am absolutely thrilled with this blanket pardon. Rephrasing the statement slightly, like: > I am pardoning additional individuals who may continue to experience the unnecessary collateral consequences of a conviction for simple possession of beer, attempted simple possession of beer, or use of beer. and it sounds utterly obvious,…

Does something else being worse (alcohol) but acceptable mean that an alternative (cannabis) should be acceptable?

If alcohol was not already widely (ab)used in a county would they be wrong to prohibit it?

(Note not meant in any form of malice, intended as probing questions for discussion)

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#240

Post by pseudosavant »

thsksbd wrote: post #237

Good for them, of course. The cynic in me, however, can help but notice that that's a lot of people whose voting rights have just been restored.

And the cynic in me wonders why you think people having their voting rights rightfully restored is bad or suspect?
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