Biden Pardons Everyone Convicted Of Marijuana Possession

President Joe Biden today pardoned everyone who has been convicted of marijuana possession. The pardon only applies to those convicted of federal crimes but Biden urged governors to follow his lead on the state level.

From the Daily Caller:

President Joe Biden announced Thursday he was “pardoning all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession,” saying “no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana.”

The president also called for governors to follow his lead and pardon “simple state marijuana possession,” and asked for a review on how marijuana is classified under federal law, arguing it makes “no sense” that the drug is on the same legal level as heroin.

How many people does this affect? Right now, there are no federal inmates in prison for simple marijuana possession. As Charles Fain Lehman of the Manhattan Institute points out on Twitter, not a whole lot of people have been prosecuted historically by the federal government for simple marijuana possession.

The pardon seems like small beans: nobody's currently in federal prison for marijuana, and it sounds like historical convictions number in the thousands, which is not a lot. I would guess that the number with *only* a federal mj possession conviction is even smaller. 1/ https://t.co/SNjzeRra5L

— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) October 6, 2022

That said, it's good to remember that many of those convictions are probably plea deals. Even if Biden isn't explicitly pardoning convicted dealers, the guys who the feds are actually charging with MJ possession are not mostly kids in the wrong place at the wrong time. 2/

— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) October 6, 2022

Instead, the big impact is Biden’s call to reschedule marijuana.

But the actually impactful policy change will be rescheduling MJ, if they go ahead with it. Really unclear what that would mean, though: they could in theory move it to a lower schedule, which could just mean legitimating medical MJ regimes. Or they could remove it altogether!

— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) October 6, 2022

Worth noting that marijuana just isn't a big part of federal law enforcement anymore. Questions here are much more about how federal laws have interacted with state legalization. And we won't know what that looks like if and until we hear more from HHS 4/4

— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) October 6, 2022

oh, also, fentanyl is on a lower schedule than heroin because fent has medical indications. Schedules don't comport with seriousness of drug.https://t.co/U4lwtgdsv6

— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) October 6, 2022

There is no doubt this action is legal by President Biden. The power to pardon is extremely broad and virtually unchallengeable in court.

The Controlled Substances Act gives the Biden administration the authority to reschedule marijuana.

Now there are important legal issues that have to be worked out. Chief among them is whether or not marijuana users can legally purchase a firearm for example.

There is also a political calculation in play. This is designed to energize turnout on the left and especially among young people. Will it work? We’ll see.

Is it a good idea? Personally, I think so. Marijuana has already been legalized and/or decriminalized in many states and the sky hasn’t fallen out. The American people increasingly support legalizing marijuana.

The number of people directly impacted by this is minimal so that should be kept in mind. But this could be a major step in changing the course of the War on Drugs.