Some people oppose it, others support it. I think most people here are pro-cannabis and liberal, and I think most will see legalization as a "win", but politically, is it really? Will your vote change depending on the result? If you don't your voice don't matter as much.
Those who matter are at the fringe: pro-cannabis leaning conservative, anti-cannabis leaning liberals, etc... Legalizing cannabis may win the first group, but lose the second group. Timing is important too. Did a big cannabis-related news broke out lately, can it be used to divert attention from other matters, like an unpopular tax.
To me, cannabis seems to be very strategic in partisan politics. Like gender identity, sex work, etc... These are subjects where people has strong opinions and unlike other subjects like economics that are highly dependant on external factors and governments have little power in practice, these can go either way without causing too much disruption.
I can’t imagine a scenario where the Democrats legalize cannabis and it hurts their elections. You think there are more anti-cannabis liberals than pro-cannabis conservatives?
I think that actually, if Democrats just did what seems clearly good for most of the country, they’d have much better electoral outcomes than their current Kafka-esque strategy.
I have trouble not believing the 'theory' that it's the carrot that gets some percentage of voters out to vote for you. Actually solving it removes the carrot.
And with most presidential elections actually being quite close, and only ~70% of the population voting at best, even getting 3-5% voters, who otherwise don't care at all about politics and wouldn't bother voting for any cadidate, to vote for you simply means you win.
I had no confidence in any mealy-mouth things Biden said. And for that matter, after watching Obama make campaign promises and then completely backing out, I had no confidence for him either. (But elections arent always about voting for. Sometimes its voting against.)
Trump's worse, by a LOT. However to his credit, he did completely unban delta6, delta8, delta10, HHC, THC0, and a whole lot other THC based drugs federally. He did do a hell of a lot more than any other democrat or republican, just with a single action.
There has still been a major decline in federal prosecutions for marijuana in the US, something like -50% since 2020. The vast majority of weed prosecutions happen at the state level.
State vs federal unfortunatly doesn't change the math behind the "if we do W then union X will not support us and then voting block Y will vote against us at a predicted rate of Z%" math upon which most of these political decisions are calculated.
Apparently not, or Trump would have done it earlier, too.
There were investigations into just what reclassification would mean for other regulations, laws and treaties. These were begun during the Biden administration and are now being finished. If you just say "weed's schedule III now", without any other modifications to policy, you'll have confusion over just what that means to a bunch of different federal, state, and local agencies.
Also, you don't want a President just doing things with the stroke of a pen. Actually, that's our biggest problem right now, letting an autocrat piss all over separation of powers as a treat.
No, it requires more than a stroke of the pen, and the stroke of the pen that was required happened in 2024. It's been DEA foot-dragging ever since, which is what Trump's executive order last year addressed.
Biden didn't want to reclassify it because there's really no point in reclassifying. It's still illegal to possess for recreational use and requires a controlled substance prescription from a doctor.
It would take a law to remove it from the control substances scheduling, no president can do that. Which is also why Trump didn't do it. (It's now schedule 3 instead of schedule 1)
Common russian disinformation talking point. I'd rather have elected bodies representive of the people within the states to decide rules for the country, not the equivalent of a post-it note with a possible 4yr expiration date to shove through your own agenda and trample over the will of the people. Fixing the system is correct, using inappropriate measures to take shortcuts for short term wins to fool voters on progress is a fools errand. Biden took multiple steps in his terms to correct this, no need to frame it intentionally dishonestly.
They did. Biden did the "right" thing by starting a 4 years long re-certifying process. That's how "locked down" marijuana was... It was in the same class as heroin. You cant just "sign a piece of paper". (And its worth remembering hemp/marijuana has been locked down for literal centuries for silly reason. First because it was affecting the rope industry, and then later as a tool to suppress minorities and hippies and the counter-culture anti-vietnam movement in the 60's. Cant have black panthers running around with guns, But how can we criminalize them? Well... you make something they all do illegal.... like smoking weed. There's a reason the incarceration for weed-related offenses is VASTLY BLACK.
I mean... you can just EO this.... but there's rules you're SUPPOSED to follow. Biden did that.
This is simply Trump reaping the rewards of that effort without (of course) giving any acknowledgement to Biden.
Oh and BTW, why didn't Trump do this in his FIRST administration in 2016-2020?
Oh, and remind me which party consistently voted AGAINST rescheduling over the past 30 years?
The private prison industry is affected by this HARD. When you deregulate, all those marijuana criminals (who are mostly black btw) go away. Thats less heads in jail, which is less money to the private prison corporations.
My guess is now that this current administration is sending immigrants and americans to immigrant concentration camps, their headcount will be a wash when the marijuana convictions fade away.
And guess which party the private prison industry donates to?
Ruling by executive order is fundamentally incompatible with democracy.