Maya Angleou said, “when a person tells you who they, believe them the first time. For all the talk recently among marijuana reform supporters that President Biden will finally bring about an end to our nation’s nearly 85- year disastrous war on cannabis that has resulted in so much pain, suffering and loss of liberty and livelihood for hundreds of thousands of otherwise law- abiding Americans, it’s time to reckon with the fact that Joe Biden is not your savior and he is not your friend. Joe Biden is whato he has always been, which is openly hostile to cannabis consumers and determined to ensure that if cannabis itself won’t destroy your life, cannabis policy surely will.
US President Joe Biden answers a question during his first press briefing in the East Room of the … [+]
While there has been much optimism about the prospects of federal cannabis reform under a Biden administration, much of that came crashing down last week amid reports that Biden’s White House had fired or reassigned multiple young staffers whose only “indiscretion” was prior cannabis use. Many of these staffers lived in states where cannabis use and sale is perfectly legal, casting doubt on Biden’s campaign pledge that states should be free to implement their own cannabis laws without federal intervention.
Adding insult to injury, Candidate Biden stated that possession of marijuana should be decriminalized and that nobody should have their lives or future harmed because of their cannabis use. It seems this sentiment does not apply to members of now President Biden’s own administration, whose career trajectories in politics have been derailed solely because of their use of cannabis in places where such conduct was perfectly legal at the time.
Sadly, this behavior is representative of a pattern where people who have previously shared reformers views disavow or moderate them when brought into Biden’s orbit.
Most prominently, Vice President Kamala Harris had become a true champion for marijuana legalization while in the U.S. Senate, serving as the lead sponsor for the MORE Act, the most far- reaching legalization proposal ever introduced in Congress. She made cannabis policy and criminal justice reform a mainstay of her own campaign for president, raising the issue repeatedly in speeches and debates on the campaign trail. Yet when asked about her position recently, a Harris spokesperson told Bloomberg News that the Vice President’s “positions are now the same as Biden’s.” In other words, she now only supports decriminalization and medical marijuana, but not full- scale reform.
Vanita Gupta, President Biden’s pick for Associate Attorney General has a long history of advocating for marijuana legalization and an end to the War on Drugs during her time with the ACLU, NAACP, and Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights, and had been viewed as a likely champion for reform in the Justice Department. Yet when questioned on the subject during her confirmation hearing, Gupta said she now only believes in decriminalizing marijuana, falling far short of her prior support for legalization.
She further backtracked on the War on Drugs as a whole, claiming “I believe that substance use disorder is both an enforcement problem and a public health problem, but I do not support decriminalization of drugs,” while oddly adding later that she’s “not too proud” of her evolution on the subject. An evolution that puts her views far more in line with those of the current President of the United States.
This pattern of legalization supporters backpedaling to appease Joe Biden dates back to the campaign itself, where Biden’s campaign seemingly sought to roll back years of progress made by the Democratic Party since President Obama left office. In 2016 the Democratic Party platform included language calling for a “pathway” to legalization. Yet in 2020 Biden’s campaign rejected such language, removing any mentions of meaningful cannabis policy reform from the platform. When supporters tried to add a legalization plank back into the platform, even co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) voted against it, presumably not to run afoul of the wishes of her party’s standard bearer despite her own strong support for legalization.
Of course, none of this should be especially surprising. Joe Biden’s record on marijuana, drugs and crime is arguably the worst and most punitive of any Democratic politician of the past 50 years not named Diane Feinstein. He was an author and champion of the 1994 Crime Bill that is largely responsible for the current mass incarceration crisis in this country, and was the lead sponsor of the RAVE Act, one of the last pieces of draconian drug policy legislation passed by Congress that punished concert venue owners and promoters if drugs were used or sold at their events, even if they had no knowledge or involvement in the drug related activity.
This is a politician who in 1974 said, “I don’t think marijuana should be legalized,” repeating that sentiment as recently as 2010 when he stated “I think legalization is a mistake.” As Vice President in 2012 Biden had ““serious doubts that decriminalization would have a major impact on the earnings of violent criminal organizations,” and that “on examination you realize there are more problems with legalization than with non-legalization.”
How many times does a politician have to tell you their position before people start to believe them? While marijuana reform advocates have reason to be excited about the prospects of reform under unified Democratic government in Washington, DC, we must also recognize that the current president is far out of step with the mainstream of his own party and the American public on this issue and will not lead the way, as evidenced by this misguided firing of competent staffers over their past marijuana use.
The silver lining for reform advocates rests not with President Biden or the backtrackers and apologists in his administration, but with the Democratic Party leadership currently in control of Congress. During the party’s time in the wilderness during the Trump Administration, Democratic Congressional leaders have made cannabis reform a major part of their legislative agenda. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through the MORE Act during the 2020 lame duck session as a means of signaling that this would be a priority for her caucus in the coming year, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has announced that he is working on a piece of comprehensive legalization legislation with Cory Booker, even meeting with leaders of the reform community and industry to talk through details.
It remains to be seen if Biden will pressure Congress not to send him a comprehensive reform bill, or veto one if it reaches his desk. But with the support of the majority of the Democratic caucus in Congress, and a growing number of Republican members, it is entirely possible that President Biden will soon have to decide whether to pick a fight with the mainstream of his own party by vetoing marijuana reform, or pressuring leadership not to send a bill to his desk in the first place.
But make no mistake, if reform is going to happen it won’t be because Biden supports it, promotes it, or champions it. It will happen because of pressure put on Congress and his administration by activists and advocates, backed by the overwhelming majority of American voters, as well as y most Democratic and many Republican politicians in Congress whose views on this issue are no longer stuck in Joe Biden’s retrograde 1980’s War on Drugs mentality.
Joe Biden is who he is. Very few people pushing 80 years old change positions on issues as longstanding and consistent as President Biden’s disdain for marijuana legalization. Reform advocates should stop deluding themselves into believing that Biden will change or evolve on this issue and instead focus their energy on the more realistic avenues for achieving their policy goals in the coming years.
