Weed Could Be Biden's Ace Up The Sleeve Against Trump If He Would Fulfill His Campaign Promises

With the 2024 presidential election just around the corner, Americans are gearing up for a tense presidential rematch.

In his analysis of recent polls, CNN's Harry Enten said surveys from New York Times/Siena College, CBS/YouGov, Fox News and The Wall Street Journal all gave Donald Trump "a higher percentage of the vote than Biden by margins ranging from 2 to 4 points."

In an apparent attempt to stem the erosion of support among voters, President Biden has been engaging with younger voters as witnessed in his recent debut on TikTok. The move, which coincided with the Super Bowl, signaled a potential strategic shift in Biden's re-election campaign.

In September, the White House addressed young people via a fact sheet that listed issues facing the fastest-growing demographic in the country. These included student debt and gun violence, environmental concerns and unresolved cannabis reform. The introduction to the "Addressing a Failed Approach to Marijuana" section of the fact sheet highlighted the unjust outcomes of marijuana criminalization as well as Biden's 2022 pardon of federal cannabis prisoners, which impacted some 6,500 individuals with prior convictions for simple weed possession.

Both Biden and his Republican challenger could take on cannabis reform as a way to attract younger voters and potentially boost the turnout of Americans under 30, as evidenced by the popularity of last week's post on Biden’s official X (formerly Twitter) account. Yet, many question the cannabis accomplishments of the current administration.

No one should be jailed just for using or possessing marijuana.

— President Biden (@POTUS) March 8, 2024

Why?

During last week's State of the Union speech, Biden reiterated his stance that no one should be incarcerated for possessing cannabis.

While pardons are meant to remove barriers to housing, employment and educational opportunities, they do not expunge criminal records.

"While the pardons have symbolically forgiven convictions, they did not eliminate criminal records entirely," Green Market Report's Adam Jackson observed last week. "Additionally, these pardons have not impacted individuals currently serving sentences in federal prisons for marijuana-related offenses that exceed simple possession."

The Congressional Research Service's (CRS) 2022 report was among the first to address the limitations of Biden’s mass cannabis pardon.

"The pardon may not remove all legal consequences of marijuana possession, because it does not expunge convictions. Moreover, some collateral consequences of marijuana-related activities do not depend on a person being charged with or convicted of a CSA violation,” the report stipulated.

“Finally, and most fundamentally, the pardon does not change the status of marijuana under federal law. The President lacks the power to make such a change unilaterally."

Legalization Time Frame

In the meantime, the Department of Health and Human Services, under Biden's direction, recommended moving marijuana from Schedule I to a Schedule III substance under the Controlled Substances Act, last year.

The recommendation was directed to Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) administrator Anne Milgram in a letter dated Aug. 29.

Lawmakers have urged Milgram to act favorably on cannabis ever since, as the move would normalize the industry. The DEA kicked off 2024 by telling House lawmakers that the agency is "now conducting its review" of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug and that it is concerned about high-potency cannabis proposing more research on the long-term effects of cannabis. 

In his speech last week, Biden said he intends to fulfill his campaign promises of cannabis reform.

But, how long will it take for cannabis reform to happen?

Cultivated Daily's Jeremy Berke said, "Things are actually progressing faster than we expect," referring to a timeline for a DEA rescheduling decision. However, opposition to moving marijuana to a Schedule III classification could be a major buzz kill for the process of legalization, he added.

"If there is this much pushback to even moving it to the less-restrictive Schedule III, we're guessing full-scale legalization or even decriminalization, is a long way off,” Berke concluded.

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