[GeekyBear]

You seem to be discussing a different Biden than the one we have.

>This month, something unusual happened: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took a stand against President Joe Biden.

The New York Democrat, typically a strong Biden ally, has transformed into one of the Senate’s biggest advocates for marijuana legalization, which Biden continues to oppose. But Schumer said he’ll move forward with his legalization bill anyway.

...based on his public remarks, [Biden] seems genuinely conservative on the issue — arguing only for decriminalization (in which the threat of jail or prison time is removed for possession, but sales remain illegal), and calling for “more scientific investigations” into the issue, particularly whether pot is a “gateway drug.”

Biden, after all, not just supported but spearheaded many of the country’s current drug war policies. During the 1980s and ’90s, he backed and helped write bill after bill that toughened federal criminal penalties against all sorts of drugs. Biden has since admitted to going too far in at least some respects, but this is where he built his early political career.

https://www.vox.com/22387746/biden-marijuana-weed-legalizati...

[dragonwriter]

> You seem to be discussing a different Biden than the one we have.

No, I’m discussing the actual one we have, and the actual concrete positions he has taken, starting in the campaign, and reiterated yesterday by his press secretary.

You, on the other hand, are relying on a heavily-spun media conflict narrative that does not accurately portray the positions he has taken (claiming he supports “only decriminalization” when he supports all of general federal decriminalization of marijuana and federal legalization of medical marijuana and federal law giving states the freedom to choose legalization and rescheduling marijuana to schedule II federally and automatically expunging federal criminal records associated with marijuana.)

[GeekyBear]

Sorry, but Vox is not fake news, and you cannot spin decriminalization into full legalization.

My point remains.

Biden is a larger obstacle to full legalization than Congress.

[dragonwriter]

> Sorry, but Vox is not fake news,

I didn’t say “Vox is fake news”.

I said that article youn cited is misleading and distorts the facts to push an exaggerated conflict narrative.

> you cannot spin decriminalization into full legalization.

Well, I mean I could, it would be no harder than spinning medical legalization plus federally-protected state-choice legalization plus rescheduling plus decriminilization plus automatic criminal record expungement as “only decriminalization”.

But I didn’t. I did point out that the only practical difference between what Biden advocates ans what Schumer, et al., advocate is that the shrinking number of states that don’t choose liberalization woild have federal support for their internal policy. Which, while a significant difference, isn’t a wife enough gap in preferrred policy to stop a bill from being passed somewhere in the space, inclusive, between the two endpoints, largely dependent on where the support is in Congress. Whichever side doesn’t get what they most prefer (which might be both) would no doubt paint it as imperfect, but that's different than blocking it.

What is a real barrier is votes in the Senate, where Democrats certainly have most of their caucus but jave a couple wildcards, but very lolely don’t have the Republican votes to clear a filibuster even if they can reach a majority (and definitely don’t, unless Manchin can be broken down, have the votes to reform thr cloture rule to make the filibuster less of a barrier.)

[GeekyBear]

> What is a real barrier is votes in the Senate

If the real barrier were the Senate, it would not have renewed the ban on prosecution in states where Pot is legal while the Republicans held the majority.

The real barrier to full legalization is the fact that Biden opposes full legalization.