- In early October, President Biden pardoned
thousands of people convicted of possessing marijuana
as a federal crime.
- Too many lives have been upended
because of our failed approach to marijuana.
It's time that we right these wrongs.
- But what's potentially bigger than those pardons
was Biden's announcement of his goal
to move marijuana out of its Schedule 1 drug classification.
- So, I'm asking the Secretary of Health and Human Services
and the Attorney General to initiate a process
to review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.
- So, it's not about pardons, it's not about expungement,
it's not bout how many people are pardoned,
it's not about how many people are expunged.
It's the fact that the most powerful elected official
in the United States
said that marijuana prohibition was a failure.
In fact, it was such a great failure
that he was using his executive power
to try to do something about it to change it.
- Marijuana's Schedule 1 label is part of a system
used by the DEA to categorize different drugs.
- Substances that are in Schedule 1 by definition
under the law must meet three distinct criteria.
They must possess a high potential for abuse,
they must have no accepted medical utility
in the United States,
and they must be determined to be so unsafe
for human consumption
that they could not be safely administered
even within a controlled,
regulated setting, like a hospital.
I don't think you would find a consensus
among any group of Americans anywhere in this country today
that marijuana meets even one of those three criteria,
much less all three of those criteria.
- Essentially, marijuana's Schedule 1 label
could be seen as a bit of a hard line.
Biden agrees.
- The federal government currently classifies marijuana
as a Schedule 1 substance, the same as heroin and LSD,
and more serious than fentanyl.
Makes no sense.
- And the general public agrees as well.
- Views towards marijuana have been one of the fastest
shifting issues in American politics in recent decades.
As recently as the late 1990s,
only about a quarter of Americans
supported legalizing small amounts of marijuana,
but a poll from Monmouth University
after Biden's announcement
found that nearly seven in 10 Americans
supported legalizing small amounts.
- The question becomes, what would the past
to deschedulization look like, and how long would it take?
- There are three requisite agencies
that are involved in the process --
the attorney general's office, HHS, and DEA.
So, essentially, what is going to happen
is that representatives from all of these agencies
are going to undergo a review
of the available scientific literature,
and then eventually, when they've reviewed the data
and they've answered these questions,
they're going to publish a report of their findings,
and that report is going to either recommend cannabis
stay in Schedule 1,
is moved to a lower schedule, or is descheduled.
As far as the timeline goes, look, we've seen in the past,
this process takes many, many years.
- A host of states have legalized the substance,
and this November, Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri,
as well as North and South Dakota,
will also decide on recreational marijuana's legality
at the state level.
- As marijuana legalization has gained support over the years,
many states have moved forward with legalization,
either for medicinal or recreational use.
- There is a recognition that at the end of the day,
the federal government has to institute changes
to comport what the states are doing with federal law.
- Behind the push to legalize marijuana
is a massive social equity argument fueling the movement.
- While white and Black and Brown
people use marijuana in similar rates,
Black and Brown people are arrested, prosecuted,
and convicted as disproportionately higher rates.
- It's arguably the first time we've seen a president speak
so critically about marijuana policy.
He made it clear in his remarks
that criminalizing those who possess marijuana
is a failed public policy.
He elevated this discussion.
He legitimized marijuana policy
reform as a valid political issue.