Joe Biden supports decriminalizing marijuana, stops short of calling for legalization

[Gothmog]

Here are Joe Biden's real positions on decriminalization of pot https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/16/politics/joe-biden-marijuana-decriminalization/index.html

Joe Biden supports decriminalizing marijuana, a Biden campaign spokesman told CNN, but the former vice president isn't going as far as calling for the drug to be legalized on the federal level.

"Nobody should be in jail for smoking marijuana," Biden told voters at a Tuesday house party in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Asked by CNN if the former vice president supports legalizing marijuana, Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman, said Biden believes the drug should be decriminalized and that decisions on legalization should continue on the state level.

"As he said [Tuesday], Vice President Biden does not believe anyone should be in jail simply for smoking or possessing marijuana. He supports decriminalizing marijuana and automatically expunging prior criminal records for marijuana possession, so those affected don't have to figure out how to petition for it or pay for a lawyer," Bates said in a statement to CNN.

Nothing in these policies affect the rights of states to legalize pot

[walkingman]

1. I can live with that! Now we just need to rid ourselves of the GOP in Texas.

[Tiggeroshii]

2. At this point anything short of full legalization is off base

[awesomerwb1]

4. No.

Actually it's not.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. Of course it is. It was banned under bigoted lies in the first place.

Should be just as legal as post-prohibition alcohol.

That said, a potential Executive being on board with de-criminalization is 'good enough' for now I guess.

[obamanut2012]

29. The poster is right -- it is illegal because of racism and xenophobia

There is zero reason for it to be illegal, let alone Schedule I. Almost everyone I know has an MMJ card, literally everyone I am friends with, and all my coworkers, except for a couple. And, we have to jump through hoops to get it. But, any of us 21+ can go buy as much alcohol as we want and drink ourselves to death. It literally makes no sense, medically, legally, or logically.

Changing it to Schedule II, or "decriminalizing" it is literally the worst thing to do.

Your saying "Actually, it isn't" makes no rational sense, either. Yes, actually, it is.

[lapucelle]

34. It's a scheduled drug in an international treaty to which the US is a party.

https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=VI-18&chapter=6&clang=_en

Why is changing its schedule classification "literally the worst thing to do"?

[Autumn]

41. How it is that Canada managed to legalize while ALSO being a signatory to that same treaty?

Asking for a friend.

[lapucelle]

48. Canada breached the international treaties.

You might want to introduce your friend to the Occam's razor principle.

https://www.undispatch.com/the-international-implications-of-canadas-cannabis-legalization/

https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/general/international-law-experts-say-legal-cannabis-defies-canadas-un-treaty-obligations/275627

https://globalstrategylab.org/files/globalstrategylab/files/legalizing_cannabis_biolates_the_un_drug_control_treaties.pdf

[Autumn]

49. Damn Canadians. Breaching stupid treaties and making sure their citizens have healthcare.

[lapucelle]

50. Tell your friend that there's no shame in asking questions

however simple, obvious, and easy to research the answers might be.

[Gothmog]

3. Former Drug Warrior Biden Unveils Cannabis Decriminalization Plan

Link to tweet

Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden tacked away from his drug warrior past with a new plan Tuesday. He wants to reduce mass incarceration in the US with a 10-page proposal including: decriminalization of cannabis, $20 billion in prevention funds for communities, efforts to reduce racial profiling by police, more job training in prisons, ending private prisons, and other proposals.

“Today, too many people are incarcerated in the United States–and too many of them are black and brown,” Biden’s team said in a post to his campaign website on Tuesday. “To build safe and healthy communities, we need to rethink who we’re sending to jail, how we treat those in jail, and how we help them get the health care, education, jobs, and housing they need to successfully rejoin society after they serve their time.”

According to FBI reports, cannabis is a key driver of mass incarceration—marijuana arrests are the number one type of drug arrest in the US, and drug arrests are the number one type of arrest police make. Former Vice President Biden’s cannabis decriminalization would come with automatic expungements of past marijuana records, support for federal medical legalization, and a downgrade of cannabis to Schedule II, “so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.”

As for adult-use federal legalization, Biden echoed President Trump’s position in recent years, stating he would, “leave decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states.”

[DrToast]

5. Gosh! You mean he's not coming for my legal weed?

But the stand up journalists at Vice said so!

[Gothmog]

6. I was amused by that article

[George II]

24. Yeah, that's funny isn't it? And they call themselves "Vice"? The funny thing is....

....that on a Federal level marijuana is illegal, so as far as any President is concerned "legal weed" is a misnomer.

[Thekaspervote]

7. Thx for posting this full and factual statement from Mr. Biden's campaign

[Hassin Bin Sober]

8. This is disqualifying.

Decriminalizing it is not good enough.

[redstateblues]

14. Ridiculous post

[Autumn]

17. Other candidates are leading on this. Harris, Warren, Sanders,

Gillibrand, Ryan, Gabbard, Inslee O’Rourke Castro and Yang. Even Delaney FFS

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/2020-democratic-candidates-stand-together-on-marijuana-legalize-it.html

[farmbo]

20. I won't say it's disqualifying... but it is Stupid!

A system of decriminalization, coupled with robust commutations of incarcerated offenders is a step forward. It makes him nominally better than Trump on the issue.

That said, What is it about Joe that keeps him from taking decisive actions, even when there’s zero downside to taking that action... and said action would flood the 2020 polling places with eager, young voters ready to pull the ‘D’ lever?

Joe... the ‘90s called and they want their drug policies back.

[Cha]

38. It's Not the '90s drug policy.

[George II]

25. You want them to deliver it free, too?

[obamanut2012]

30. My MMJ place does

Most do, rec or medical, just like Domino's.

[Cha]

37. Sez you.

[LanternWaste]

61. Quite the creative, though unsupported allegation.

I get it... it's fun to pretend the objective qualifications for running are predicated on who's got the biggest bong.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. I used to worry

that people on Cannibis would have altered states of mind and make bad decisions when they were stoned silly. Now I realize most people make bad judgments all the time, when they are straight and sober.

But. But I will worry about people driving while impaired on it, and aphrodesiacs can make relationships move at an accelerated pace that is no good for those involved. So I think there should be a legal age, and regulated doses. Yeah, I know, here comes Big Brother again, but they do regulate alcohol and enforce it.

[OKNancy]

12. Have you ever known someone who smoked weed three or four times a day?

I did. He couldn't hold a job, was unmotivated. Fortunately he stopped at age 26.
But he had to go through lots of friendships before that happened.

I think Biden's plan is fine. I just don't get it when people say it's disqualifying.
Weed is not that important.

[bucolic_frolic]

13. No never knew anyone that used heavily

but as some people can't handle their alcohol, some can have ups and downs on a joint twice a month. It removes inhibitions and changes their personality.

[quickesst]

21. one of my best friends....

.... smoked pot before he went to work, at lunch time, and when he was at home. I can count the days he missed work up to his retirement on one hand. Having spent 30 years in construction myself, I can say with confidence that my friend was the finest welder I had ever met. I haven't seen many who could match his welding skills. I think it's more a matter of the individual rather than a blanket judgment. That's just my experience and opinion.

[Lordquinton]

62. I know lots of people that smoke 3-4+ times a day

They are all successful, motivated people. They have to be cause that's an expensive hobby.

[Scurrilous]

10. Good to hear this.

Thanks!

[msongs]

11. reading for comprehension - legalization should continue on the state level n t

[Blue_true]

16. Honestly. I am exactly where he is on this.

I will vote to legalize if that is the only alternative to current practice in my state (it is a crime to have it without a Med prescription), but I would much rather see decriminalization of all recreational amounts and allow people to grow their own up to a specific amount. I would keep high volume dealing criminal.

[PatrickforO]

18. Good. But you know what is desperately needed -

when the feds decriminalize marijuana, they need to allow BANKING SERVICES for all of the dispensaries in states where it is legal. Right now, marijuana buyers must use cash. It is a cash business and the money needs to be carefully laundered before the banks will touch it. This causes dangerous situations with big crates of cash and so on.

It is insane.

Just because when alcohol was legalized again in 1933, the prohibition czar didn't want to be on the soup lines, so he began to talk about how bad marijuana was.

Used to be, you smoke pot, you shoot your horse.

Then, you smoke pot, you shoot your mother

Then, you smoke pot and are mainlining heroin six months later!

I got into an argument about it with a transit executive one time. He turned a serious face to me and solemnly intoned, "Marijuana is a gateway drug!"

I said, well, back in the day when we were kids, the same pusher who had the pot also was pushing the pills and the powders, so when you became a steady pot customer, he'd say, hey, try these pills, try these powders!

Now, though, clean, well-regulated, well-taxed dispensaries sell pot. The pusher may still have the pills and the powders, but they don't run in the same circles as the marijuana retailers.

So, pot was a gateway drug...maybe...but now is no more.

He didn't buy it, just shook his head, rattled the ice in his drink and went to join another knot of people. And I was left alone, checking out the cool snack tables.

[Gothmog]

19. I agree

[Cha]

22. Thanks, Goth, for the reality check!

[Gothmog]

23. The Vice article was not accurate

[Cha]

26. Yeah, I put it in the trash.

[lapucelle]

32. And the clickbait headline employs a Republican/right wing trope.

"Democrat X is coming to take away your Y.

[Cha]

33. Exactly, lapucelle! "Obama is coming to

take away your guns".. fucking rw sold a lot of guns.

[Cha]

35. And Mahalo for standing up

for Biden on that misleading thread, lapucelle.

[lapucelle]

36. I'm very wary of disinformation regarding any of our candidates.

During the general election campaign in 2016, there were a lot of half truths that folks framed in ways to make apocryphal decontextualized nonsense grounds for the "disqualification" of our GE candidate.

MAHALO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cha]

43. Yes.. we've already

lived through that nightmare a million fold.

Nip it in the bud! Pun intended

[Cha]

27. So what was that vice

article saying? That Biden didn't support "decriminalization"?

Thanks, Goth!

[DrToast]

28. Here's what the Vice article did

Biden’s positions are these:
He supports decriminalization.
He supports leaving legality to the states.
He wants to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II.

Now, drugs that are Schedule II have a whole different set of ways they are treated by the government. So basically Vice zoned in on unfavorable aspects of Schedule II. (There are good things about Schedule II vs. Schedule I, too.)

But here’s the thing, those unfavorable aspects are completely at odds with what Biden believes.

Biden doesn’t want to reschedule marijuana so his federal government can restrict it further. If that was his goal, he wouldn’t have to reschedule anything, as the current scheduling of marijuana is more restrictive than Schedule II.

[lapucelle]

31. The US is party to an international treaty which includes cannabis on its drug schedule.

I don't think we can unilaterally deschedule it on a federal level without abrogating our participation in the treaty.

https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=VI-18&chapter=6&clang=_en

[melman]

39. lol

lol

[George II]

42. lol

lol

[BootinUp]

44. Lol. Nt

[lapucelle]

51. International treaties and national implementation legislation are so funny!

[melman]

55. So you agree

Nice to know.

[George II]

63. Lol!

[ehrnst]

69. Your "lol" in response indicated that you agree. Which I think is nice to know.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=232886

[Gothmog]

64. Thank you for posting this

[lapucelle]

66. I posted details on this thread.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=229448

[Gothmog]

67. I read these materials

Thanks

[lapucelle]

68. Facts are important.

A lot of people don't understand what it means to decriminalize vs legalize and how limited our options are at the federal level. It's so odd to me anybody laughs at international treaties and the US Code. (This might almost remind some people of Trump fans who laugh at facts that aren't discussed on their preferred "news" sources.)

I am very wary ANY media source that frames its talking points by using right wing tropes:

Democrat X is coming to take away your Y.

At best, it amounts to a superficial understanding of an issue by a source some people (unfortunately) rely on; at worst it's manipulation based on the media's assumption that the audience doesn't know the facts and won't bother to find them out.

Caveat lector.

[ooky]

40. Decriminalizing it is a good first step. I'll take that if Joe is our best chance of getting

the asshat out of the White House. I won't deny I want more. I want the freedom to grow it with my corn and tomatoes and get rid of the black market for it too.

[ucrdem]

45. Reasonable.

Pot is not an issue anyone will win or lose on.

[SHRED]

53. Reasonable?

How is fining or putting people in prison for growing a few plants "reasonable"?

Asking for millions of us.

[progressoid]

46. 66% of Americans support legalizing the use of pot.

Seems like a no-brainer Joe. The American public supports legalization. Just do it.

[mtnsnake]

47. Hey, Joe, only decriminalizing marijuana is NOT the answer for way more than a few reasons!!

Among other things....

It leaves the control of weed in the hands of the drug cartels and the dealers instead of the good guys.

The money from sales goes to the bad guys instead of the good guys.

The purity of the pot remains unregulated. In the wrong hands, you know what that can mean.

Perfectly honest citizens can still be caught smoking a little weed and have to face civil fines. Are you kidding me?

Millions/billions of dollars that could be used for infrastructure or jobs goes to the bad guys instead of to the taxpayers.

Not allowing citizens to smoke weed completely LEGALLY when anyone of age is allowed to consume alcohol is just plain STUPID and makes zero sense.

Please get with it, Joe, because just about the only ones who agree with you that pot shouldn't be legalized are the dirtbags running the pharmaceutical industry. WAKE UP!!

[SHRED]

52. If his policy doesn't allow individuals to grow a few plants

And also doesn't allow a person to make concentrates like oil, then it just doesn't go far enough for people suffering.

[SHRED]

54. His plan will lose us votes if he's the nominee

Sorry but that's a fact.

If you want to disparage cannabis users by claiming they don't count then have at it but I'm telling you the truth.

Schedule II is a horrific idea.

"I view Biden's plan as a ham-fisted handing over of cannabis to the pharmaceutical industry," said Gavin Kogan, a California-based cannabis executive and attorney who chairs Grupo Flor, a large, vertically-integrated cannabis firm.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43kg3m/joe-biden-is-coming-for-your-legal-recreational-weed

[DrToast]

56. "Cannabis executive" distorts Biden's position. What a shocker.

[SHRED]

57. So the truth bothers you I see

"If the federal government actually enforced the CSA [Controlled Substances Act] Schedule II [on cannabis in a Biden administration], then almost all current state-legal activities would be banned and could be shut down," said Jonathan Caulkins, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College who has served as co-director of the nonpartisan RAND Corporation's Drug Policy Research Center.

Schedule II is a horrible idea.

[DrToast]

58. No, lies bother me.

Schedule I drugs are illegal federally.

Is it legal in some states? Yes. Has Schedule I prevented states from doing that? Nope.

Saying that making it schedule II would somehow harm states is blatant fear-mongering, especially when Biden has said that he wants to federally decriminalize it and leave legality up to the states.

You’re being played by industry executives who don’t feel Biden is going far enough. Which is fine. I agree with them on that point. But it’s not okay to lie about what will happen if Biden’s policies go into effect.

[DrToast]

59. You're ignoring the most important part of that quote...

....and they’re counting on people to do just that.

"If the federal government actually enforced the CSA [Controlled Substances Act] Schedule II [on cannabis in a Biden administration], then almost all current state-legal activities would be banned and could be shut down," said Jonathan Caulkins, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College who has served as co-director of the nonpartisan RAND Corporation's Drug Policy Research Center.

Guess what?! If the federal government actually enforced the CSA Schedule I, it would be even worse! But they’re not. And Biden doesn’t want to do that. So the whole fear-mongering bullshit article is based on a premise that is not going to happen.

But you’re not scared if they admit that.

[SHRED]

60. Well excuse me if I don't trust him on this issue

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/25/18282870/joe-biden-criminal-justice-war-on-drugs-mass-incarceration

“Quite frankly, the president’s plan is not tough enough, bold enough, or imaginative enough to meet the crisis at hand,” he said. He called not just for harsher punishments for drug dealers but to “hold every drug user accountable.” Bush’s plan, Biden added, “doesn’t include enough police officers to catch the violent thugs, not enough prosecutors to convict them, not enough judges to sentence them, and not enough prison cells to put them away for a long time” — a direct call for more incarceration.

As the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Biden did not just support the war on drugs and mass incarceration; he wrote many of the laws that helped build a punitive criminal justice system. That included measures that enacted more incarceration, more prisons, and tougher prison sentences for drug offenses, particularly crack cocaine.

[Gothmog]

65. Who is surprised by this?