Kamala Harris signals she'll go further than Biden on marijuana legalization "we need to legalize it and stop criminalizing this behavior"

usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml to politics @lemmy.world – 1033 points –
Kamala Harris signals she'll go further than Biden on marijuana legalization
businessinsider.com
197

You are viewing a single comment

Biden never said he supported full legalization as far as I am aware, so it's not surprising he didn't go as far as he could.

She just made the announcement for the first time in this campaign, so not stated that yet, but she has pushed for legalization via legislation in the past as a senator and called for faster action for the DEA on rescheduling as VP

In other areas, Walz and Harris have already given plans for passing legislation to make banking access easier for legal states and helping veterans get access to medical marijuana in the VA

She just made the announcement for the first time in this campaign, so not stated that yet, but she has pushed for legalization via legislation in the past as a senator and called for faster action for the DEA on rescheduling as VP

In fairness, she pushed for that legislation in 2018 when Trump was president. I've seen Democrats introduce a lot of things when they know they stand no chance of passing. I hope a plan will be forthcoming. At the moment, we have a campaign promise.

In other areas, Walz and Harris have already given plans for passing legislation to make banking access easier for legal states and helping veterans get access to medical marijuana in the VA

This, however, is actually reassuring. Thank you.

He absolutely promised to fully decriminalize. Instead all we got was a committee to look into looking into considering reducing the scheduling of cannabis. It was an empty promise, like every democrat before him because if they actually did something they wouldn’t be able to keep dangling the carrot for votes. Source: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/promise/1529/decriminalize-marijuana/

Decriminalization is not the same as legalization. In terms of legalization, he only supported legalization for medical marijuana which is the process he started. He actually pledged to move it to schedule 2 but has started the process to move it to schedule 3. That process is getting closer for what it's worth. The DEA has really dragged it out but it's nearly at the end with the public hearing in December

From the source that politico links to

he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes

[...]

reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.

So he promised to decriminalize, but did nothing to make good on that promise until most of his term in office had passed, and that's why we aren't done with the lengthy process to get there yet. Your answers throughout the discussion seem to keep glossing over the bolded part. (unless I have some misunderstanding, which is possible)

And that is the part that makes me doubtful Kamala will be any different.

He actually started the reschedule process in 2022, but before that there were attempts by dems to do legalization via legislation but in the senate that didn't end up getting enough votes.

Rescheduling via legislation is more direct and skips the lengthy process describe in the law for executive action. The president is not able to immediately snap their fingers and reschedule. People within the DEA / other agencies have showed it down since 2022. It's at the last stages now after the public comment hearing in December. For what it's worth, as VP Harris did try to call on the agencies to speed up said process but she has no direct power to do so

Ah, the article linked above seemed to say that he'd just begun the process this past May, but maybe I misread it. I will read it again.,

Wait a second, when someone said Biden should do more you replied that Biden can’t do more,

But now you are saying Biden didn’t do more because he didn’t want to.

Something’s not adding up.

I think dems are using this issue the same as they did with abortion.

That’s why women are dying right now in many states, because politicians are dangling carrots with no intention of actually doing their jobs