Once OMB signs off, the DEA will take public comment on the plan to move marijuana from its current classification as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. It moves pot to Schedule III, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids, following a recommendation from the federal Health and Human Services Department. After the public comment period and a review by an administrative judge, the agency would eventually publish the final rule.
A very good development for reducing mass incarceration, but:
- Listen Fat, this is too little too late to save the 2024 election, if it'll have even gone into effect by then.
- How fucking incompetent are Democrats that they're taking the clock down to zero on this obvious win that should have been a "first 100 days" item.
However, it would not legalize marijuana outright for recreational use.
boooooooring. typical
nothing burger.is it a step in the right direction? yes. in the same way that pulling your pants down and leaving your underwear on while you take a shit is "better than nothing".
can't wait to see how this is framed by all the $500 haircuts and thinkpiece typers as the most powerful and earth shattering move for personal freedom since the emancipation.
It's more than a nothing burger, but you're right that it's far short of the obviously right policy.
Most (all?) drug laws, even state ones, are based on how drugs are federally scheduled. Downgrading marijuana's scheduling will have a real impact on what cases will stick, available penalties, etc.
Marijuana is illegal for a reason. My cousin smoked ONE jazz cigarette and he DIED within moments of the "toke". Biden better rethink this or he'll have blood on his hands.
I did a key bump of weed in college once and now whenever I crack my back, I get the munchies.
My cousin, had gone through a bad breakup, and I mean he hardly seemed like himself. One night he was hanging out with us and I thought he was going hard. He wouldn't listen to reason. He ended up injecting 7 marijuanas. His blood went septic before it crystalized in his veins. He turned into a translucent statue by the morning. I still miss him. I really just cannot believe people think this drug is okay. It's not.
My friends and I made this same joke FOR YEARS
He turned into a translucent statue by the morning
Nobody gets stoned harder than Minsc.
it's true, I'm the jazz cigarette his cousin smoked and he died
Continually breeding strains to get the most THC, and thus most profit, at expense of the other cannabinoids present in the plant is bourgeois decadence and counter-revolutionary.
Your cousin was a SINNER and a SATANIST, and he deserved it.
Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD
bro what is LSD doing up there?? lil bro thinks he's on the team
given how common it seems to be for men to discover empathy for the first time when tripping on acid I'm not surprised they banned it
LSD isn’t physically addictive and damaging like lots of schedule 1 drugs.
yeah it just betrays that they're on there to criminalize people the government wanted/wants to lock up.
It's not about health hazards.
It was never about health hazards.
Schedule III is still federally illegal to smoke recreationally so what will this actually do besides just make people get angry whenever their doctor refuses to prescribe medical marijuana because it is still de facto illegal in their state
Looking like you’re doing something while actually doing nothing is a democrat skill
Democrats and splitting the difference perfectly to piss off both sides, name a more iconic duo.
I imagine a few days ago...
Aide 1: "We're gonna do something on wacky tobaccy."
Aide 2: "Performative bullshit?"
Aide 1: "Of course."
Aide 2: "Why?"
Aide 1: "I just came back from briefing POTUS on the Tiktok focus group data."
might like truck drivers finally be allowed to smoke if such a thing as a federal MJ card comes into being
but something like that will probably require another 5 years of political BS time wasting
I'm not an expert but I'm pretty sure this means doctors can hand out prescriptions for not feelin' too great. Basically legal with extra steps. And then I think this makes it literally possible to like, do the research legally needed to for regulators to push it even lower on the list without new laws being passed
Biden doesn't even have the balls to make marijuana legal to save his presidency. Feckless Democrats.
It's hard to tell what's driving the timing on this news, beyond it not being a priority for Biden. The article mentions he called for a review of the drug scheduling scheme back in October '22, which suggests it's not a response to Palestine.
He recommended the HHS (overarching org of the FDA) reevaluate the schedule status of it back in October '22. The HHS took like a year to do their thing and then made a recommendation to the DEA to change it to schedule III. The rest of the time from them until now was the DEA also doing their own internal review.
I feel like if the timing was political, they would have pushed this news out to late summer closer to the election. That's not even considering the fact that a simple majority in Congress could have done the same damn thing without any of this beurocracy.
Pretty sure the president can reschedule drugs with the stroke of a pen, and this whole process Iis basically political insulation.
Not really though. Executive orders can easily be tied up and overturned in court. If Congress isn't willing to sign legislation to reschedule it, there will absolutely be enough opposition to overturn any blanket order. He essentially did sign an executive order for this, but it was to order the HHS review and do it the slow way.
Ok, so try. Do something and make them oppose it, don't piddle around your entire time in office because maybe they will be able to effectively counter what you do.
It's easy to get caught in the weeds (so to speak) on how exactly to change things, but it's clear that much more can be done. And the president has like 100 people on-call to handle the details folks like us aren't sure of offhand.
I get the frustration, but in this case I think it's a little unfair. Our archaic drugs laws are dictated by the Controlled Substances Act and the only two avenues to update the schedule status are a formal DEA review or an act of Congress. The latter clearly has no legitimate interest beyond political grandstanding so the other possible path to change was used. He took the most effective route in this case.
The vast majority of our legislators are not there because they want to make the world a better place. They're there to further their own self interests and most political dealings work on a quid pro quo arrangement. Forcing a DEA review cost almost nothing politically. The real problem is that this extremely popular action that was unnecessarily harming a lot of fucking people even required executive action at all instead of being addressed 30 years ago by actual legislation.
Some good info for the discussion:
https://mainelaw.maine.edu/faculty/can-the-president-reschedule-or-deschedule-marijuana%EF%BF%BC/
We argue that this procedure gives the President—acting through the FDA and DEA—power to reschedule marijuana to a less restrictive schedule (as the Biden Administration is currently trying to do).
I think the question is whether Biden had to go through some lengthy process to coax the DEA to reschedule, or if he could have just ordered them to. Even supposing there's a statutory requirement to go through some review process, he could have (1) set the process in motion on January 21, 2021, instead of waiting 22 months, and (2) applied political pressure to the agency to expedite the review. I agree this is the only route to rescheduling, but even assuming he couldn't just order the DEA to do it, there was still a lot of meat left on the bone.
The real problem is that this extremely popular action that was unnecessarily harming a lot of fucking people even required executive action at all instead of being addressed 30 years ago by actual legislation.
I could only get the abstract for the article, but the linked brief is likely more than enough. You're right that intense pressure could have been out on the agencies to expedite the process, specifically, the Attorney General, FDA, and DEA heads are all appointed positions and can be removed from office with relative ease, but that move would come at a heavy cost.
The subtext though is that it's not a priority for him besides being a campaign bullet point, which you've already touched on plenty and I agree with. Rescheduling doesn't redeem anything in my eyes, but I'm not going to look down on positive progress when it happens. So make sure to 420blazeit and celebrate.
I could only get the abstract for the article
You should be able to get it from SSRN by clicking "Download This Paper", then "Download without registration" on the following page (you may need to scroll down a bit if you're on mobile), and finally "Download".
Oh shit, thanks for letting me know. Funny enough, I even tried to download the pdf, but mistook that "download without registration" as a heading for their marketing section!
Weird how every democrat piece of progressive legislation just somehow mysteriously ends up perfectly timed to overlap into a Republican administration that will overturn it!
Lmao but still won’t legalize it even though that would probably win him reelection
Why do Dems even exist
Quick! Quick! They're really mad give them weed hurry!
Listen Fat, this is too little too late to save the 2024 election, if it'll have even gone into effect by then.
they'll say "we need to elect Genocide Joe or Trump might stop the rescheduling process"
Wow Biden must be desperate. You do this shit in the early days of your presidency so you don't appear desperate to voters.
Idea for a bit if this passes before Nov: Blaming a Trump win on Liberals toking instead of voting
This is not enough to undo literal genocide but sure I will give the Biden admin credit if they actually succeed at doing this.
I still won't vote for the genocidal maniac though
removing the poison ivy growing on my fence and getting tackled by 10 pigs
I'm actually immune to poison ivy!
I think this means I'm a sovereign citizen.
I think I might be too because ive been in the woods a lot and have never gotten it. Though I have also never tested that by purposely touching any.
Not sure if it's the same with poison ivy, but with Poison oak true immunity is rare/difficult to achieve. I had one co worker who believed he was immune to po for years until he got the oil in an open gash and the infection went systemic. After that, he got po rashes like the rest of us. True immunity does seem to be possible though, I know a few people who have completely immunized themselves with an extremely careful and specific tea regimen
It's not poisonous, but this gave me the mental image of classifying kudzu and watching the DEA napalm the entire southeast only to discover the kudzu is winning and now I can't stop giggling.
Also isn't diamorphine schedule 2?
Also also scheduling is fucking dumb
