President Pardons Thousands of People Convicted of Marijuana Possession
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President Joe Biden pardons thousands of American citizens convicted of marijuana possession under federal law.
Sending people to jail for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives – for conduct that is legal in many states. That’s before you address the clear racial disparities around prosecution and conviction. Today, we begin to right these wrongs.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 6, 2022
Biden on Thursday pardoned all people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law and said his administration would review whether marijuana should still be a Schedule 1 drug like heroin and LSD, saying that “makes no sense.”
The pardons will clear about 6,500 people who were convicted on federal charges of simple possession of marijuana from 1992 to 2021 and thousands more who were convicted of possession in the District of Columbia, officials said ahead of the president’s announcement.
Mr. Biden urged governors to follow his lead for people convicted on state charges of simple possession. The number of convictions under state laws vastly outnumbers those who have been charged with a violation of federal laws, limiting the overall reach of the president’s actions on Thursday.
Still, the moves — which come about a month before the midterm elections — represent striking shifts for the federal government on a campaign promise that Mr. Biden made in 2020.
“Sending people to jail for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives — for conduct that is legal in many states,” Mr. Biden said on Twitter on Thursday. “That’s before you address the clear racial disparities around prosecution and conviction. Today, we begin to right these wrongs.”
Mr. Biden stopped short of calling for the complete decriminalization of marijuana — something that Congress would have to do — and said that the federal government still needs “important limitations on trafficking, marketing, and underage sales of marijuana.”
Photo by Rick Proctor on Unsplash
