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.
Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana
61–70 of 351 posts
Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana
#62This 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…
I think trying something like this would end very badly for the union.
Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana
#63[flagged]
Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana
#64This 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 page mentions DC specifically, which is under federal jurisdiction. The headline may indeed be overselling the implications.
The page mentions 4 categories of law which are pardoned.
The first is https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-title21/html..., which covers the whole country.
The next two are DC specific.
And the last is specific to possession on federal properties.
So no, the headline is not overselling the implications. If you simply possessed marijuana and were convicted under federal law, your case is going to be pardoned.
Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana
#65Its macabre that I can walk into a nice clean store and get personalized service to buy something that thousands are sitting in prison for.
That is fairly wild when you phrase it like that. Especially as you could literally be 100ft from someone getting cuffs put on who is across the border in another state, while you are getting gold treatment in a dispensary trying to figure out what strain you want.
Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana
#66About time. Finally the harm caused by possession offenses is starting to be recognized by the state.
If they want to ban drugs in general, then they should prosecute those supplying it and those producing it for sale. Not private individuals consuming it in their own homes, and causing absolutely no harm to anyone. And those who are consuming it in public while presenting a danger to others, that can be made illegal. Failing that, they can outright ban public consumption.
Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana
#67This only applies to federal "possession or use", which nearly never happens. Those convicted of "possession or use" are nearly 100% plea down cases when the actual offense was sales, distribution, or manufacturing.
it used to happen a lot, and this also applies to the district of columbia.
Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana
#68I don't disagree that this is good for those involved or affected. However, nothing stops the same from happening to someone tomorrow. The past several administrations have been relying too heavily on executive fiat for the optics. The DEA needs to reschedule it. Anything else is at best a band-aid, if not simple lip service to buy votes.
> The DEA needs to reschedule it. The DEA needs to have this authority rescinded. They clearly cannot be trusted with it, and they have no impetus to remove historically misclassified drugs off the list, as it would reduce their overall budget. It's the federal version of the Siebert strategy and it's completely injust.
> They clearly cannot be trusted with it, and they have no impetus to remove historically misclassified drugs off the list, as it would reduce their overall budget.
If that's their logic then someone there can't do math. Between fentanyl, other opioids, and meth they have plenty to do.
Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would the House ever pass it as it would give a huge win to one side? A bit unaware in terms of US politics, but up here since legalization, life is exactly as it was before — people who smoked just continue to smoke but legally, people who don’t… don’t.
The House doesn’t have to do anything for rescheduling to happen. HHS (one federal agency) has already recommended it to DEA (another federal agency), which has the final say unless Congress were to affirmatively intervene. With that said, they aren’t proposing to grant federal legality to the state-legal recreational marijuana market. They are planning to reclassify it from Schedule I (no recognized medical use) to…
> The House doesn’t have to do anything for rescheduling to happen.
The entire theme of this thread is "nothing stops the same from happening tomorrow". One president can order the DEA to reschedule it, and then the next can undo that work just as easily. We need a law, not an executive fiat. Most of the country is in favor of legalization, including most republican voters, so you'd think it would be easy to get the house on board, had it not been co-opted by right-wing extremists.
Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana
#70I 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,…
100%. The War on Drugs was always in contradiction of the spirit of the 21st Amendment, which ended Prohibition. It needs to be formally acknowledged as such, and further as fundamentally unconstitutional, but these kinds of victories take time. At least that so-called "War" is destroying fewer lives now.
[flagged]