Still boggles my mind the previous administration had the power to do that and did nothing.
Some people oppose it, others support it. I think most people here are pro-cannabis and liberal, and I think most will see legalization as a "win", but politically, is it really? Will your vote change depending on the result? If you don't your voice don't matter as much.
Those who matter are at the fringe: pro-cannabis leaning conservative, anti-cannabis leaning liberals, etc... Legalizing cannabis may win the first group, but lose the second group. Timing is important too. Did a big cannabis-related news broke out lately, can it be used to divert attention from other matters, like an unpopular tax.
To me, cannabis seems to be very strategic in partisan politics. Like gender identity, sex work, etc... These are subjects where people has strong opinions and unlike other subjects like economics that are highly dependant on external factors and governments have little power in practice, these can go either way without causing too much disruption.
I think that actually, if Democrats just did what seems clearly good for most of the country, they’d have much better electoral outcomes than their current Kafka-esque strategy.
And with most presidential elections actually being quite close, and only ~70% of the population voting at best, even getting 3-5% voters, who otherwise don't care at all about politics and wouldn't bother voting for any cadidate, to vote for you simply means you win.
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-no...
I had no confidence in any mealy-mouth things Biden said. And for that matter, after watching Obama make campaign promises and then completely backing out, I had no confidence for him either. (But elections arent always about voting for. Sometimes its voting against.)
Trump's worse, by a LOT. However to his credit, he did completely unban delta6, delta8, delta10, HHC, THC0, and a whole lot other THC based drugs federally. He did do a hell of a lot more than any other democrat or republican, just with a single action.
The prison system also loves weed legislation. So many folks are/were behind bars for weed.
Biden also mass pardoned minor weed possession charges https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/biden-marijuana-simple-possess...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_policy_of_the_Biden_a...
There were investigations into just what reclassification would mean for other regulations, laws and treaties. These were begun during the Biden administration and are now being finished. If you just say "weed's schedule III now", without any other modifications to policy, you'll have confusion over just what that means to a bunch of different federal, state, and local agencies.
Also, you don't want a President just doing things with the stroke of a pen. Actually, that's our biggest problem right now, letting an autocrat piss all over separation of powers as a treat.
It would take a law to remove it from the control substances scheduling, no president can do that. Which is also why Trump didn't do it. (It's now schedule 3 instead of schedule 1)
People really have to stop saying this, he could have done it if he wanted, he and his team choose not to.
I mean... you can just EO this.... but there's rules you're SUPPOSED to follow. Biden did that.
This is simply Trump reaping the rewards of that effort without (of course) giving any acknowledgement to Biden.
Oh and BTW, why didn't Trump do this in his FIRST administration in 2016-2020?
Oh, and remind me which party consistently voted AGAINST rescheduling over the past 30 years?
The private prison industry is affected by this HARD. When you deregulate, all those marijuana criminals (who are mostly black btw) go away. Thats less heads in jail, which is less money to the private prison corporations. My guess is now that this current administration is sending immigrants and americans to immigrant concentration camps, their headcount will be a wash when the marijuana convictions fade away.
And guess which party the private prison industry donates to?
Ruling by executive order is fundamentally incompatible with democracy.