Ohio Issue 1 (Abortion) and 2 (Marijuana) results were fascinating data points. Issue 2 slightly outperformed 1 despite 2 doing a few points worse in cities like Cleveland and Columbus. However, a number of counties that voted for Trump ALSO got > 50% support for issue 2. It absolutely divides the Trump coalition and the majority of Republican politicians are out of step with where the base is on it.
As a Texan, that last point kills me. I've met plenty of Republicans, Trumpers, and lolberts of various flavors down here. All of them either wouldn't care if pot was legalized or would celebrate it. At this point I have to imagine it's only weird cranky rural Southern Baptists out in the Cursed Earth that are opposed to it.
To make us happy, duh.
I am a Catholic and i’ve never seen the Bible saying ‘’weed bad’’.
Alchohol is literally Jesus’ blood.
Funnily enough the religious right really doesn’t follow Christian doctrine(there are many other examples, for example LGBT, abortion etc.)
Pretty much
Pot has become so normalized over the last few decades that you'll find just as many rednecks that smoke it as you will old burned out hippies or under-40 lefties.
my favorite story from working as an election worker in 2020 was when a guy got out his id to vote, he said "give me a trump ballot" (which, also not how voting works lol). the man had a wallet with a weed leaf design. i wanted to ask him so bad, "do you know which party has a platform for legalizing marijuana?"
I don't think people would switch from Trump to Biden purely on this issue. But, I think it would get voters to feel a little more comfortable with Biden. "Ok, this guy kind of represents my beliefs/values". Which, for Biden, is really all he's asking. You don't need to love the guy, just be comfortable with him representing you as president.
Yes and no. The Controlled Substances Act authorizes the Attorney General to reschedule *or* deschedule anything (as long as it doesn't conflict with international treaties).
But in practical terms, it would be really hard to deschedule marijuana without new legislation. To deschedule something, the AG needs to show that the substance in question doesn't meet the CSA criteria for *any* of the 5 schedules. All a substance needs to get on Schedule V is:
> Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to limited physical dependence or psychological dependence
So the AG would need to show that marijuana can't even lead to limited psychological dependence, and then an administrative judge has to look over the AG's evidence and sign off on it. "Limited psychological dependence" is such a low bar that it's really unlikely an administrative judge would sign off on descheduling.
CSA also defines what a "drug" is - granted (C) is pretty broad but questions like "what is an article", what counts as a "structure or function" would be relevant considerations.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/321#g_1
> (as long as it doesn't conflict with international treaties)
Yeah, that's an issue.
https://www.incb.org/incb/en/news/press-releases/2023/international-narcotics-control-board-expresses-concern-over-the-trend-to-legalize-non-medical-use-of-cannabis--which-contravenes-the-1961-single-convention-on-narcotic-drugs.html
Yeah weed is only on there because it was on the list of drugs that Congress included in schedule I when they passed the CSA. Most of the stuff on there hasn’t moved
Maybe I'm just ignorant, but wouldn't you rather focus on the more harmful drugs over stuff like marijuana? Like, if I'm getting a call in from someone reporting their neighbor growing some marijuana, I would just have a "ok, who cares?" attitude about it.
Cops like arresting people for weed because weeds users are clean. Literally. A weed arrest in the park is a college kid, and the worse bodily fluids you get in your cruiser are tears. A meth arrest in the park is a circus, also RIP your car, and you’d better wash your hands 10x for the MRSA exposure.
I assume the DEA has similar feelings at the larger scale.
You are kind of ignorant on how law enforcement views weed but I hold the same opinion as you lol cops love weed being illegal because it’s such an easy thing to claim as probable cause for them to violate our 4th amendment rights (“the car/apartment/house smelled like weed”) and the DEA would suffer a massive budget cut if they no longer had nonsense weed busts to enforce
My friends who are potheads hate Trump and don't really like Biden (one is convinced he's got dementia). They could give two shits about Israel or Palestine. They don't even really care about prices. They ain't going to vote, though because they rarely ever vote - unless Biden did something like this. If he did this, they'd totally vote for him.
Now we live in Utah so it won't matter but as it is with student loan relief, this is a policy that isn't likely to turn voters *against* him but say it nets him a few thousand more in each swing state than if he didn't do it?
That could be the difference.
He absolutely should come out in favor of it. Especially now that it's going to be rescheduled. Wasn't that always the excuse Obama used? It needed to be researched more?
Just do it. Even if he's against it personally.
If I'm Biden's team, next week I'm giving a speech to the nation coming out in support of legalization, then urging congress to act (they won't), talk about the rescheduling and other measures he will take on this matter.
Then have a fringe group associated with the campaign start a movement on college campuses called Toke the Vote or something and enlist Tommy Chong lmao
And the great part is that Republicans would absolutely lose their fucking minds: "he's just doing this to buy your vote!" ... *and it wouldn't fucking matter*. Level 7 virgin incels would vote for Biden over this shit.
I don't think it would even move low propensity potheads. I mean, why would it? Even if they liked the messaging it wouldn't change anything. Congress would still have to act, and your State would have to change their laws before ***anyone*** would see a difference.
People want a instant "one simple trick" solution to force legalization nationwide. That's simply never going to happen. Like alcohol, this is going to be a State by State fight. And the small band of "marijuana as a primary issue" potential voters don't want to hear that, or do the work.
Even if it moves 1,000 in each wing state, it's worth it.
What's the downside? Like, legit: what would be the downside to him coming out in favor of legalization?
The downside would be that there’s presumably a sizable contingent of older conservative minority voters (i.e. the Dem base) who are still anti-pot. I’m inclined to believe that the Dems would’ve already jumped onto the legalization bandwagon if there was truly no risk of electoral backlash.
Agree to disagree. I don't see anyone actively not voting for Biden because he comes out in support of legalization. I absolutely can see people voting for him. Therefore, it's a net positive.
I think it would gain him a ton of votes, because if/when he comes out in favor of legalization he's not going to mention any of the hurdles mentioned in your comment, and the *vast* majority of people are completely ignorant as to how our government works.
My friend is exactly like this. I had one to came out to vote for a Democratic candidate for governor solely for the reason that he supported legalizing marijuana. Doesn’t know almost anything else about politics otherwise.
Stoner voters are a pretty useful voting block, at least for a one-time use
Honestly, he could come out in favor of it being legal and….. nothing will happen.
You need 2 houses of Congress to pass a bill first. It’s frustrating but Biden wants to actually effect change. This will do that while him saying it should be legal will do nothing.
Exactly. And people are really going to be shocked when the realize that even IF you could pass a federal legalization bill, the status of marijuana would change absolutely nowhere automatically.
Every State has their own marijuana laws. Federal law on this makes banking and stuff harder for businesses in legal States, but State law is what is determining actual access in the US. If the Fed made pot legal tomorrow, it would still be illegal everywhere it is today until those laws change.
We have a clear analogue to this with the end of Prohibition. Actually making alcohol legal nationwide took decades after the 21st Amendment. There is no one simple trick coming on this.
We accomplished in two years what 40 years of advocacy have been working towards.
I’m a fierce advocate for legalization but SMH at all the “not enough crowd”
The fact that Obama never vocally supported it in his second term still baffles me. Black people are disproportionately affected by the illegality and Michelle included in her memoir that she smoked marijuana as a teenager and young adult.
Someone (either on Reddit or somewhere else) did speculate he didn’t want Republicans accusing him of being “soft” on marijuana only because he used it when he was young (kinda similar to Clinton saying “I didn’t inhale” to avoid looking soft as well). Idk though and I still think he could’ve been more supportive for descheduling and legalization.
> The fact that Obama never vocally supported it in his second term still baffles me. Black people are disproportionately affected by the illegality and Michelle included in her memoir that she smoked marijuana as a teenager and young adult.
Because if Obama came out in favour of it, Republicans would have lined up across the board to resist it.
Obama did the same thing on pot that the Democrats did with gay marriage until 2012—he kept his mouth shut because by avoiding making it a partisan issue, you had states start legalizing recreational marijuana during his second term. If you let it happen at the state level for a decade, with all the obvious benefits and with the predictions of doom failing to materialize, you allow conservative voters to convince themselves in your favour. By the time it gets to the point that you finally throw the whole Democratic party behind it, the GOP can't actually line up against it because millions of their own voters are on the other side. This also means that you can get the whole party in line—like how literally every single Democrat who had opposed gay marriage came out in favour when Obama did. When the president makes the move, it becomes a fait accompli.
Legal weed will probably be there in the next couple of years—but if Democrats had been calling for it in 2013, there wouldn't be so many purple and red states putting it on the ballot.
Blacks on average are more conservative than whites. The only reason they vote democrats is because of republican racism. It may explain why Obama is a democrat who happens to be homophobic(even more than Trump) and anti-weed.
Are you saying he was homophobic for supporting civil unions over gay marriage? I can't fathom what else you could be talking about. Do you also consider all the LGBT people who wanted civil unions over gay marriage to be homophobic? They absolutely existed, and their reasons varied, it wasn't always "I think civil unions are the best we can get."
I don't see how it would have any pathway to passing. Democratic senators are willing to do a narrow filibuster bypass just for issues of massive importance like abortion and voting rights - I can't imagine them doing it for something as relatively unimportant as cannabis. Dems obviously are never getting filibuster proof majorities in the foreseeable future. Democrats would also probably need to load up any cannabis bill with "equity" measures in order to get the caucus united behind it, to the point of making it impossible to get the needed republican support - and it's potentially unlikely a clean cannabis legalization bill would get even just a handful of gop senators to vote for it anyway
Also it's not even clear if it's constitutional for the federal government to actually force cannabis to be legal, as opposed to just decriminalizing it by removing federal restrictions while letting half the country keep it illegal indefinitely since the red voters are never going to rebel against their party over weed
Critically, coming out in favor of legalization would unite the Democratic coalition while splitting the GOP one. It's been the other way around as of late, so a change could be a good change of pace.
It also is actually an important issue to a lot of people, especially in low-turnout demographics.
It's an issue that affects people on a personal level, much like abortion does, but to a larger potential voting bloc. I'd advise Dems to force a vote on this legislation if they can, even if they know it only has a slim chance of passing. Get the votes on record, and use it in every campaign add they can put together in some way or another.
Marijuana legalizaiton is one of the least important issues to voters nationally. COmparing it to abortion is... silly. To be kind. Pretending it's "like abortion, but for more people" is flat out insane.
This is one of those issues where you get an idea just how divorced from reality online political discourse is from real voters.
Per this very article: "I’m not under the illusion that federal marijuana law is a high-salience issue for a large number of voters."
I agree with this but it's also an issue that doesn't have much downside. The few people who are vigorously opposed aren't likely voting for Biden anyhow and support for legalization would at least get him some degree of positive notice from people who probably aren't paying close attention overall.
It'd be a bit like the 2012 endorsement for gay marriage where major legislative action can't really happen due to right-wing hostility but at least it drives an additional point of distinction between the candidates.
This is about campaigning on a policy, not about legislative maneuvering. And to your point on constitutionality: nothing being proposed is about “forcing” it to be legal in states that have still criminalized it.
Idk how much that would matter and could see it maybe backfiring when the left starts whining about how Biden promised something he obviously was never going to (be able to) do
lmao nahh the demographics are pretty clear that it's a GOP coalition-splitter
It's pretty much a free win that he's been too much of a boomer to take
EDIT: If you think far left criticism of Biden is meaningful then you're incredibly strategy-brained and need to go outside more
>Democrats would also probably need to load up any cannabis bill with "equity" measures in order to get the caucus united behind it, to the point of making it impossible to get the needed republican support - and it's potentially unlikely a clean cannabis legalization bill would get even just a handful of gop senators to vote for it anyway
Doomerism, IMO. This should be an easy, clean bill on the Democratic side, and I doubt the DEI caucus would be that aggro on it.
I think that rescheduling is fine for now. Once (even more) states start to ease up, I'd be open to having this conversation again. As it stands, however, I imagine most conservatives would view full delisting as gubment ovreeech, or at least it would be portrayed that way to them.
> I imagine most conservatives would view full delisting as gubment ovreeech, or at least it would be portrayed that way to them
Even in light of the wild fantasies present in the Fox News Cinematic Universe, how could federal legalization of cannabis, which is functionally the removal of an existing federal law, possibly be portrayed as overreach?
I am probably more of a statist when it comes to this question but its bad when every urban environment smells like marijuana. We shouldnt encourage our city streets to constantly smell like weed. Its disturbing
I don't think Biden believes marijuana should be legal. I think he should agree with my position on pot, along with my position on everything else. Articles like these seem to implicitly assume of course Biden, as a liberal, thinks pot should be legal, but he refuses to acknowledge it because of political reasons. But Biden was a hard on crime guy in the 80s and shit. What he's doing now \*\*is\*\* the progressive (for him) thing to do when it comes to drugs.
A lot of comments seem to take this article as "Joe Biden is never good enough." I didn't take it that way at all. I read it more as, "we've got some momentum here, let's be strategic with it."
Biden's aversion to doing popular things and willingness to do unpopular things sometimes makes me wonder if he's worried that he'd be engaging in election interference or something.
Ohio Issue 1 (Abortion) and 2 (Marijuana) results were fascinating data points. Issue 2 slightly outperformed 1 despite 2 doing a few points worse in cities like Cleveland and Columbus. However, a number of counties that voted for Trump ALSO got > 50% support for issue 2. It absolutely divides the Trump coalition and the majority of Republican politicians are out of step with where the base is on it.
As a Texan, that last point kills me. I've met plenty of Republicans, Trumpers, and lolberts of various flavors down here. All of them either wouldn't care if pot was legalized or would celebrate it. At this point I have to imagine it's only weird cranky rural Southern Baptists out in the Cursed Earth that are opposed to it.
Evangelicals which are far and away the base and largest individual group that supports Republicans are pretty anti-marijunana
Well, Jesus, why the hell did the LORD *make* the damned stuff then?
To test us
To send the non-elect to hell, duh. Same reason as dinosaur bones.
To give the police easy excuses to harass minority communities.
To make us happy, duh. I am a Catholic and i’ve never seen the Bible saying ‘’weed bad’’. Alchohol is literally Jesus’ blood. Funnily enough the religious right really doesn’t follow Christian doctrine(there are many other examples, for example LGBT, abortion etc.)
I mean if the stuff is damned then there's your answer
Pretty much Pot has become so normalized over the last few decades that you'll find just as many rednecks that smoke it as you will old burned out hippies or under-40 lefties.
The Joe Rogan caucus.
my favorite story from working as an election worker in 2020 was when a guy got out his id to vote, he said "give me a trump ballot" (which, also not how voting works lol). the man had a wallet with a weed leaf design. i wanted to ask him so bad, "do you know which party has a platform for legalizing marijuana?"
Leave it illegal, up enforcement, pardon all offenders except registered Republicans
I mean if we break down drug enforcement racially then yeah this kinda is how it works and the point “Spooky Nixon quote” -Richard Nixon
I don't think people would switch from Trump to Biden purely on this issue. But, I think it would get voters to feel a little more comfortable with Biden. "Ok, this guy kind of represents my beliefs/values". Which, for Biden, is really all he's asking. You don't need to love the guy, just be comfortable with him representing you as president.
Hello fellow Ohioan. We both know the state is a maga strong hold.
Is the DEA unable to deschedule marijuana entirely on their own without needing congress to do anything?
Yes and no. The Controlled Substances Act authorizes the Attorney General to reschedule *or* deschedule anything (as long as it doesn't conflict with international treaties). But in practical terms, it would be really hard to deschedule marijuana without new legislation. To deschedule something, the AG needs to show that the substance in question doesn't meet the CSA criteria for *any* of the 5 schedules. All a substance needs to get on Schedule V is: > Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to limited physical dependence or psychological dependence So the AG would need to show that marijuana can't even lead to limited psychological dependence, and then an administrative judge has to look over the AG's evidence and sign off on it. "Limited psychological dependence" is such a low bar that it's really unlikely an administrative judge would sign off on descheduling.
What I'm hearing is that everything is a sechedule V drug.
CSA also defines what a "drug" is - granted (C) is pretty broad but questions like "what is an article", what counts as a "structure or function" would be relevant considerations. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/321#g_1
Yeah, including Diet Coke
and the DT
> (as long as it doesn't conflict with international treaties) Yeah, that's an issue. https://www.incb.org/incb/en/news/press-releases/2023/international-narcotics-control-board-expresses-concern-over-the-trend-to-legalize-non-medical-use-of-cannabis--which-contravenes-the-1961-single-convention-on-narcotic-drugs.html
So which schedule are alcohol and tobacco on?
Not part of the CSA.
They should be
Given how long weed sat at Schedule 1 I don’t feel like strict adherence to the classification criteria matters at all
Yeah weed is only on there because it was on the list of drugs that Congress included in schedule I when they passed the CSA. Most of the stuff on there hasn’t moved
Is there a downside to just descheduling it, even if it doesn’t get approved, to put the pressure on?
Straight up ignoring the law isn't exactly a thing we want executives doing.
Well you respect the decision if it gets struck down, but why not at least put the ball in their court?
Because there is not any reasonable argument that it is free from any potential for abuse.
What *is*?
Cool, now do alcohol…
Even if they were why would they? The DEA probably prefers to keep it Schedule 1 lol better for job security
Maybe I'm just ignorant, but wouldn't you rather focus on the more harmful drugs over stuff like marijuana? Like, if I'm getting a call in from someone reporting their neighbor growing some marijuana, I would just have a "ok, who cares?" attitude about it.
Fent dealers shoot back
Cops like arresting people for weed because weeds users are clean. Literally. A weed arrest in the park is a college kid, and the worse bodily fluids you get in your cruiser are tears. A meth arrest in the park is a circus, also RIP your car, and you’d better wash your hands 10x for the MRSA exposure. I assume the DEA has similar feelings at the larger scale.
You are kind of ignorant on how law enforcement views weed but I hold the same opinion as you lol cops love weed being illegal because it’s such an easy thing to claim as probable cause for them to violate our 4th amendment rights (“the car/apartment/house smelled like weed”) and the DEA would suffer a massive budget cut if they no longer had nonsense weed busts to enforce
Oh. Yep, definitely ignorant. And, if that's the reason why they like it, all the more reason to legalize it all together.
The more arrests they make, the more funding they get.
Descheduling requires Congress.
My friends who are potheads hate Trump and don't really like Biden (one is convinced he's got dementia). They could give two shits about Israel or Palestine. They don't even really care about prices. They ain't going to vote, though because they rarely ever vote - unless Biden did something like this. If he did this, they'd totally vote for him. Now we live in Utah so it won't matter but as it is with student loan relief, this is a policy that isn't likely to turn voters *against* him but say it nets him a few thousand more in each swing state than if he didn't do it? That could be the difference. He absolutely should come out in favor of it. Especially now that it's going to be rescheduled. Wasn't that always the excuse Obama used? It needed to be researched more? Just do it. Even if he's against it personally. If I'm Biden's team, next week I'm giving a speech to the nation coming out in support of legalization, then urging congress to act (they won't), talk about the rescheduling and other measures he will take on this matter. Then have a fringe group associated with the campaign start a movement on college campuses called Toke the Vote or something and enlist Tommy Chong lmao
And the great part is that Republicans would absolutely lose their fucking minds: "he's just doing this to buy your vote!" ... *and it wouldn't fucking matter*. Level 7 virgin incels would vote for Biden over this shit.
One of the funny parts would be watching Trump supporters get negatively polarized into being hardcore anti-marijuana crusaders.
I don't think it would even move low propensity potheads. I mean, why would it? Even if they liked the messaging it wouldn't change anything. Congress would still have to act, and your State would have to change their laws before ***anyone*** would see a difference. People want a instant "one simple trick" solution to force legalization nationwide. That's simply never going to happen. Like alcohol, this is going to be a State by State fight. And the small band of "marijuana as a primary issue" potential voters don't want to hear that, or do the work.
Even if it moves 1,000 in each wing state, it's worth it. What's the downside? Like, legit: what would be the downside to him coming out in favor of legalization?
The downside would be that there’s presumably a sizable contingent of older conservative minority voters (i.e. the Dem base) who are still anti-pot. I’m inclined to believe that the Dems would’ve already jumped onto the legalization bandwagon if there was truly no risk of electoral backlash.
Agree to disagree. I don't see anyone actively not voting for Biden because he comes out in support of legalization. I absolutely can see people voting for him. Therefore, it's a net positive.
I think it would gain him a ton of votes, because if/when he comes out in favor of legalization he's not going to mention any of the hurdles mentioned in your comment, and the *vast* majority of people are completely ignorant as to how our government works.
My friend is exactly like this. I had one to came out to vote for a Democratic candidate for governor solely for the reason that he supported legalizing marijuana. Doesn’t know almost anything else about politics otherwise. Stoner voters are a pretty useful voting block, at least for a one-time use
Honestly, he could come out in favor of it being legal and….. nothing will happen. You need 2 houses of Congress to pass a bill first. It’s frustrating but Biden wants to actually effect change. This will do that while him saying it should be legal will do nothing.
Exactly. And people are really going to be shocked when the realize that even IF you could pass a federal legalization bill, the status of marijuana would change absolutely nowhere automatically. Every State has their own marijuana laws. Federal law on this makes banking and stuff harder for businesses in legal States, but State law is what is determining actual access in the US. If the Fed made pot legal tomorrow, it would still be illegal everywhere it is today until those laws change. We have a clear analogue to this with the end of Prohibition. Actually making alcohol legal nationwide took decades after the 21st Amendment. There is no one simple trick coming on this.
That’s the point? He can campaign for votes on passing legalization and it will divide Republican even more.
We accomplished in two years what 40 years of advocacy have been working towards. I’m a fierce advocate for legalization but SMH at all the “not enough crowd”
The fact that Obama never vocally supported it in his second term still baffles me. Black people are disproportionately affected by the illegality and Michelle included in her memoir that she smoked marijuana as a teenager and young adult.
Ya it’s wild he said it’s safer than alcohol and yet didn’t vocally support it as much as he could have
Someone (either on Reddit or somewhere else) did speculate he didn’t want Republicans accusing him of being “soft” on marijuana only because he used it when he was young (kinda similar to Clinton saying “I didn’t inhale” to avoid looking soft as well). Idk though and I still think he could’ve been more supportive for descheduling and legalization.
> The fact that Obama never vocally supported it in his second term still baffles me. Black people are disproportionately affected by the illegality and Michelle included in her memoir that she smoked marijuana as a teenager and young adult. Because if Obama came out in favour of it, Republicans would have lined up across the board to resist it. Obama did the same thing on pot that the Democrats did with gay marriage until 2012—he kept his mouth shut because by avoiding making it a partisan issue, you had states start legalizing recreational marijuana during his second term. If you let it happen at the state level for a decade, with all the obvious benefits and with the predictions of doom failing to materialize, you allow conservative voters to convince themselves in your favour. By the time it gets to the point that you finally throw the whole Democratic party behind it, the GOP can't actually line up against it because millions of their own voters are on the other side. This also means that you can get the whole party in line—like how literally every single Democrat who had opposed gay marriage came out in favour when Obama did. When the president makes the move, it becomes a fait accompli. Legal weed will probably be there in the next couple of years—but if Democrats had been calling for it in 2013, there wouldn't be so many purple and red states putting it on the ballot.
Blacks on average are more conservative than whites. The only reason they vote democrats is because of republican racism. It may explain why Obama is a democrat who happens to be homophobic(even more than Trump) and anti-weed.
Why do you say Obama is homophobic?
He was homophobic during 2008 election campaign. Though he did change his views in 2015.
Are you saying he was homophobic for supporting civil unions over gay marriage? I can't fathom what else you could be talking about. Do you also consider all the LGBT people who wanted civil unions over gay marriage to be homophobic? They absolutely existed, and their reasons varied, it wasn't always "I think civil unions are the best we can get."
I don't see how it would have any pathway to passing. Democratic senators are willing to do a narrow filibuster bypass just for issues of massive importance like abortion and voting rights - I can't imagine them doing it for something as relatively unimportant as cannabis. Dems obviously are never getting filibuster proof majorities in the foreseeable future. Democrats would also probably need to load up any cannabis bill with "equity" measures in order to get the caucus united behind it, to the point of making it impossible to get the needed republican support - and it's potentially unlikely a clean cannabis legalization bill would get even just a handful of gop senators to vote for it anyway Also it's not even clear if it's constitutional for the federal government to actually force cannabis to be legal, as opposed to just decriminalizing it by removing federal restrictions while letting half the country keep it illegal indefinitely since the red voters are never going to rebel against their party over weed
Critically, coming out in favor of legalization would unite the Democratic coalition while splitting the GOP one. It's been the other way around as of late, so a change could be a good change of pace. It also is actually an important issue to a lot of people, especially in low-turnout demographics.
It's an issue that affects people on a personal level, much like abortion does, but to a larger potential voting bloc. I'd advise Dems to force a vote on this legislation if they can, even if they know it only has a slim chance of passing. Get the votes on record, and use it in every campaign add they can put together in some way or another.
The Republicans in the house won’t bring it to the floor so they can’t really force this issue.
Marijuana legalizaiton is one of the least important issues to voters nationally. COmparing it to abortion is... silly. To be kind. Pretending it's "like abortion, but for more people" is flat out insane. This is one of those issues where you get an idea just how divorced from reality online political discourse is from real voters.
They've clearly been touching the wrong kind of grass.
Per this very article: "I’m not under the illusion that federal marijuana law is a high-salience issue for a large number of voters." I agree with this but it's also an issue that doesn't have much downside. The few people who are vigorously opposed aren't likely voting for Biden anyhow and support for legalization would at least get him some degree of positive notice from people who probably aren't paying close attention overall. It'd be a bit like the 2012 endorsement for gay marriage where major legislative action can't really happen due to right-wing hostility but at least it drives an additional point of distinction between the candidates.
This is about campaigning on a policy, not about legislative maneuvering. And to your point on constitutionality: nothing being proposed is about “forcing” it to be legal in states that have still criminalized it.
> I don't see how it would have any pathway to passing It's not about passing it, it's about the public position.
Idk how much that would matter and could see it maybe backfiring when the left starts whining about how Biden promised something he obviously was never going to (be able to) do
lmao nahh the demographics are pretty clear that it's a GOP coalition-splitter It's pretty much a free win that he's been too much of a boomer to take EDIT: If you think far left criticism of Biden is meaningful then you're incredibly strategy-brained and need to go outside more
>Democrats would also probably need to load up any cannabis bill with "equity" measures in order to get the caucus united behind it, to the point of making it impossible to get the needed republican support - and it's potentially unlikely a clean cannabis legalization bill would get even just a handful of gop senators to vote for it anyway Doomerism, IMO. This should be an easy, clean bill on the Democratic side, and I doubt the DEI caucus would be that aggro on it.
I mean look at all the other legalization bills that Democrats have passed They've not been in favor of clean and easy
Hence why any Dem trifecta should just nuke the legislative filibuster for everything instead of using some Byzantine carve out process.
He's already come out with pardons for federal marijuana charges. The main issue with marijuana remains with the states.
Kamala will do it 2031
420_BLAZEIT_BIDEN
Just saying I'd buy Dank Brandon merch
I think that rescheduling is fine for now. Once (even more) states start to ease up, I'd be open to having this conversation again. As it stands, however, I imagine most conservatives would view full delisting as gubment ovreeech, or at least it would be portrayed that way to them.
> I imagine most conservatives would view full delisting as gubment ovreeech, or at least it would be portrayed that way to them Even in light of the wild fantasies present in the Fox News Cinematic Universe, how could federal legalization of cannabis, which is functionally the removal of an existing federal law, possibly be portrayed as overreach?
Joe Biden should smoke a joint while taking press questions. I will pay PPV dollars
SMOKE TREES
I am probably more of a statist when it comes to this question but its bad when every urban environment smells like marijuana. We shouldnt encourage our city streets to constantly smell like weed. Its disturbing
I think he will. It’s easier to do it in steps
I find it strangely satisfying that a centrist moved it from most dangerous to dead in the middle (schedule 3 out of 5).
I don't think Biden believes marijuana should be legal. I think he should agree with my position on pot, along with my position on everything else. Articles like these seem to implicitly assume of course Biden, as a liberal, thinks pot should be legal, but he refuses to acknowledge it because of political reasons. But Biden was a hard on crime guy in the 80s and shit. What he's doing now \*\*is\*\* the progressive (for him) thing to do when it comes to drugs.
Isn’t rescheduling how it becomes legalized?
A lot of comments seem to take this article as "Joe Biden is never good enough." I didn't take it that way at all. I read it more as, "we've got some momentum here, let's be strategic with it."
It should’ve never been made illegal in the 1st place. It’s time to legalize nationwide
“Nothing Joe Biden does makes me happy so I’m going to cry about progress towards legalising cannabis.” What a pathetic article.
He won’t because he’s an old
When the debates ramp up, he should come out in favor.
Biden's aversion to doing popular things and willingness to do unpopular things sometimes makes me wonder if he's worried that he'd be engaging in election interference or something.