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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

#241

Post by ethanbond »

natebc wrote: post #235
ethanbond wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Unfortunately the people closest to achieving this are openly wannabe theocrats

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

#242

Post by justinclift »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #142
didgeoridoo wrote: post #83

For reference, as of January 2022 there were ZERO people in federal custody solely for simple possession of marijuana[0]. As a gesture, this seems fine. But the continued presence of cannabis on Schedule I makes an absolute mockery out of our entire code of laws. [0]: https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/weighing-impa...

But the pardon can allow those with convictions on their record to live a normal life. Edit: major caveat, all the data harvesting and background check firms generally do not proactively purge their data sets as they’re supposed to. It’s your obligation to follow up with every single one of them individually, and there are a whole lot of them, they operate under the radar, and it’s hard to contact them. Finally it’s…

> Finally it’s impossible to verify they actually did.

Sounds like an opportunity for someone to set up a service which does. Do the verification I mean. :)

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

#243

Post by ericcumbee »

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.

probably not as many as you may think. If I am reading the federal statutes right simple possession in most cases is a misdemeanor. it also targets the district of columbia which votes so heavily democrat it does not really matter from an electoral perspective.

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

#245

Post by thsksbd »

pseudosavant wrote: post #240
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?

I don't think it's bad. What made you think I think that?

I do think our current president is a swine of a human being who cares nothing for others but his immediate family. Evidence for this is that he himself is largely responsible for our draconian drug laws when it suited him politically, and now as his progressive wing is deserting him (for excellent reasons) he's politically motivated to do the right thing in view of an election he'd in a pickle to win.

I don't mind people voting rights restored with good reason. I do mind people who use others as a means to an end.

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

#246

Post by _8j50 »

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 only has the power to pardon people convicted or accused of violating federal law and prosecuted in federal court.

The president can pardon any offense against the united states except impeachment. State offenses have always been left to governors to pardon but states are what make the united states and as such state offenses while violating only state law, they are an offense against a state that is part of the union and affect a citizen of the union, as such the president has ulitmate power to pardon.

This is similar to how state legal dispute or prosecution can ultimately be decided by the supreme court of the united states. It does not stop at the state's supreme court.

If trump gets elected next year for example, he can pardon himself of his upcoming likely conviction in georgia. Else you have a situation where in 2028 as soon as he leaves office he becomes a wanted criminal.

Presidents know that pardoning a stare criminal is overriding state law and alienating voters from that state and risking rifts in the union.

I believe the president supersedes state governors in every power they have except things like appointments and firings at the state level.

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

#247

Post by crtified »

sakopov wrote: post #227
didgeoridoo wrote: post #83

For reference, as of January 2022 there were ZERO people in federal custody solely for simple possession of marijuana[0]. As a gesture, this seems fine. But the continued presence of cannabis on Schedule I makes an absolute mockery out of our entire code of laws. [0]: https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/weighing-impa...

> Just over 300 people — or 0.5% of the total prison population — are behind bars for any sort of drug possession. [1] If anything it'll help some folks to have a their records cleaned up. [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/bidens-marijuana-pardons-won...

I agree with your point.

But the quoted statistic is confusing. Under what specifics would 300 people = 0.5% of the total prison population? As I understand it, the total prison population of the USA is over 1 million, and the subset designated 'federal prisoners' is, by itself, over 200,000.

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

#248

Post by maxiepoo »

grecy wrote: post #236
wonderwonder wrote: post #61

Its macabre that I can walk into a nice clean store and get personalized service to buy something that thousands are sitting in prison for.

[flagged]

It is very bad that abortion is illegal but thousands of people have not been imprisoned for violating abortion laws afaik.

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

#249

Post by oooyay »

chimeracoder wrote: post #233
oooyay wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fen…

"Gateway drug theory" has to do with going from one class of drugs to another. That is not what I described. I described usage within a single class of drugs that has to do with chemically addictive properties, strength, and cost dictating the choice of the next drug.

I can see your argument about cost, but I think it ignores that, for instance, tranq is now being used in combination with fent. The reason for that isn't cost, it's entirely strength and chemically addictive properties. I think ignoring those kind of factors falls squarely outside of harm reduction. Where your argument with cost runs foul is in states like California where the legalization and subsequent regulation of the drug shot it's cost up. I'd argue marijuana probably doesn't need that kind of regulation, but chemically addictive substances I think do.

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