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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

#301

Post by elcritch »

tcmart14 wrote: post #51
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…

My guess would be that by the president pardoning these crimes, it would potentially make it more acceptable for governors to do the same for state level crimes. However, it still doesn't solve the overarching issue of draconian drug laws.

Especially ironic since Biden was one of the original architects of those draconian laws.

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

#302

Post by elcritch »

_8j50 wrote: post #246
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…

According to https://www.justice.gov/pardon/frequently-asked-questions#:~....

> Does the President have authority to grant clemency for a state conviction? No. The President’s clemency power is conferred by Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which provides: “The President . . . shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Thus, the President’s authority to grant clemency is limited to federal offenses

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

#303

Post by kstrauser »

krispyfi wrote: post #293
kstrauser wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Measured by annual average alcohol consumption in the US before and after prohibition, the 21st amendment was a huge success. That begs the question by assuming that's a good measurement. Is it? Since prohibition ended, has alcohol become so uniquely destructive here (compared to all other alcohol-allowing societies) that we've wanted to ban it again? I'm of the strong opinion that it's not. > I think temporary soc…

You likely live around well-adjusted prescription meth users and don't know it.

In the same house, even! There's a huge difference between a low dose taken under a doctor's supervision and a recreational dose taken as large and frequently as desired.

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

#304

Post by djur »

mikestew wrote: post #260
djur wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What next? Send in the army? Did the Federal Government send in the military to enforce the federal 55 mph speed limit? No, your state would just get cut off from federal funding (funding for which, BTW, came from the state’s citizens to begin with). So, don’t let ‘em out? Have fun funding the housing of the pardoned with your own state’s dollars. Is it worth that much to you, Governor It-is-the-principle-not-the-mon…

The federal speed limit is a law passed by Congress. We're talking about executive action here, and the President is specifically forbidden by law to impound funds without Congressional authorization.

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

#305

Post by djur »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #254
djur wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It would be appealed to the US Supreme Court.

I suppose the idea is that the "pardoned" prisoners would sue their states demanding release. If the Supreme Court bothered granting cert it would be to write the shortest, nastiest 9-0 "absolutely not" opinion ever.

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

#306

Post by parineum »

secretsatan wrote: post #185
dheuoddjo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> black people would not be 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for possession than white people While on its face true, this isn’t taking into account things like recidivism or multiple charges. That’s to say the average black person has more priors and is more likely to have multiple charges when charged compared to the average white.

But if say, one group was more targeted they would have more priors and more multiple charges, isn’t it just a feedback loop?

Or say, one group has historical disadvantage which causes them to be disproportionately poor which causes them to be more likely themselves to commit crime and/or live in high crime areas. Which then leads to an increased police presence and, therefore, an increased chance of police interaction.

There's no need to add in the practically unprovable presence of deliberate targeting when other explanations sufficiently account for disparities.

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

#307

Post by nmfisher »

d0mine wrote: post #295
hedora wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 0.5% figure is wrong. It’s closer to 20%. (350,000 people) Here is a write up of many prisoner stats from 2023. See slideshow 3: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html Note that terminology in this space is very important and subtle. 7 million people are arrested each year, and > 600K are sent to prison, but the total number of people in prison (and number that are incarcerated one way or another) is…

2% of the total population arrested each year sounds like a lot! If we believe chatgpt, then the median time in prison is a couple of months. I'm unsure about the math: "The arrival rate $\lambda$ is the rate at which people arrive in the queue, and the service rate $\mu$ is the rate at which people are served and leave the queue. In a stable system, the service rate must be greater than the arrival rate, otherwise t…

> If we believe chatgpt

We don’t. It’s usually not hard to source actual statistics (and when it is, that’s usually an indicator that ChatGPT is completely wrong).

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

#308

Post by jgalt212 »

kstrauser wrote: post #215
jgalt212 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's caused far more societal harm than cannabis ever did. Yes, I think this indisputably so. However, the more widely cannabis is used the greater the harms seem to be.

In absolute numbers, the harm from weed is increasing as more people use it. As a rate, it’s a rounding error compared to alcohol. For instance[1]: “According to the 2022 Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 29.5 million people ages 12 and older (10.5% in this age group) had AUD in the past year.” Compare that to[2]: “The incidence rate of cannabis-induced psychosis increased steadily from 2.8 per 100 000 person ye…

Fair enough, but youths seem to overdo everything. And alcohol is one of those things you can overdo.

I'm curious as to where the break-even is. e.g. one joint per day is as harmful as 2.5 beers per day.

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

#309

Post by _8j50 »

elcritch wrote: post #302
_8j50 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

According to https://www.justice.gov/pardon/frequently-asked-questions#:~... . > Does the President have authority to grant clemency for a state conviction? No. The President’s clemency power is conferred by Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which provides: “The President . . . shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cas…

That's DoJ policy. The legal community in the majority also agree with that, but, here is the text from wikipedia:

> The Constitution grants the president the power to pardon "offenses against the United States".[5] An offense that violates state law, but not federal law, is an offense against that state rather than an offense against the United States; however, the Supreme Court has never ruled on this matter or in the President's power to grant a habeas corpus petition for a state offense where it has been denied by a federal court.

If you consider english common law and the absolute nature of the pardon power, including presumptive crimes then this is an untested grey area. If the power was limited, the limit would have been stated. The current consensus is that the limit is implied, but an argument can be made that since english kings had pardon power over their whole domain, the same is implied when stating "offenses against the united states".

Federal authority supersedes state authority in every other case, if this was different it should have been stated so as it is a deviance. But ultimately this would come down to a supreme court opinion.

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

#310

Post by cm2187 »

tptacek wrote: post #268
4RealFreedom wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know that? We can't eliminate opiate deaths completely but we can make them as safe as possible. Restricting access isn't working.

Because we had (and still do have) an epidemic of fatal abuse of labeled, regulated opioids. I'm not saying restriction works either; I'm rejecting the pat solutionism of the original comment and acknowledging how difficult the problem is. Maybe legalization is a good idea, maybe not; what it certainly isn't is a solution to opioid deaths.

And I believe the problem isn't so much that those legal opioids are dangerous, because in theory you still have a medical system to curb access. It is that they are addictive, and that users who get addicted will either abuse them or switch to illegal drugs if they can't access them.

I am not against drug legalisation, on libertarian grounds. If you want to kill yourself, kill yourself, it's your life not mine. But I don't buy that banning drugs results in more harm that making them freely available.

And it's very paradoxical for liberal societies to want to ban or heavily control the use of alcohol and cigarettes and to consider legalising hard drugs at the same time.

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