Biden Has a Plan on Weed (That Doesn't Involve Legalizing It)

[left-of-center2012]

Former Vice President Joe Biden is staking out a position to the political right of the 2020 field when it comes to marijuana policy. Biden would not legalize weed as president, but he called for expungement of all past convictions for pot use as part of a criminal justice reform plan released by his presidential campaign Tuesday.

Biden would support the decriminalization but not legalization of marijuana for recreational use. That keeps him out of step with every other top-tier Democratic presidential candidate, all of whom have called for the full federal legalization of the plant.

Biden would take marijuana off of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s most severe classification list, where it’s considered the same as heroin, LSD, MDMA and peyote as a substance with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

But while other campaigns have called for fully declassifying cannabis, Biden would make it a Schedule II drug, on par with cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl, all of which the DEA considers “drugs with a high potential for abuse, with use potentially leading to severe psychological or physical dependence.” The upshot is that lowering marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II would allow the government to research it, according to a senior Biden campaign official, who briefed reporters on his plan.

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/zmppna/joe-biden-doesnt-want-to-legalize-weed-but-he-doesnt-want-anyone-to-go-to-jail-for-it