[HN Gopher] Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession...
___________________________________________________________________
Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of
marijuana
Author : arkadiyt
Score : 264 points
Date : 2023-12-22 18:22 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.whitehouse.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.whitehouse.gov)
| tptacek wrote:
| Reminder that Biden can only pardon federal crimes, and that very
| few people have federal convictions for simple possession.
| kulahan wrote:
| Smart to do what he unilaterally _can_ considering how stalled
| things are right now.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The change still happens within the executive branch - the
| DEA is in charge of the scheduling of marijuana.
| tptacek wrote:
| The big limitation here is federal vs. state, not executive
| vs. legislative. Drug crime clemency isn't stalled in the
| states.
| vlan0 wrote:
| Exactly. Not many folks catching federal charges for simple
| possession. trafficking on the other hand....
|
| https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/weighing-impa...
| notatoad wrote:
| >very few people
|
| i know it's relatively few people compared to the number of
| people with state charges, but the reporting on this says it's
| _thousands_ of people. which, in absolute terms, is a lot of
| people.
| taneq wrote:
| Honest question, isn't there a bunch of stuff (including drug
| stuff) that the local cops don't pursue because it's the feds'
| job? Or is this just my small random assortment of U.S. crime
| drama viewing biasing my sample set?
| tptacek wrote:
| Drug prosecutions are overwhelming local (meaning that
| they're state crimes).
| kstrauser wrote:
| I don't use cannabis. If it were to go away tomorrow, my life
| wouldn't change one bit.
|
| I am absolutely thrilled with this blanket pardon.
|
| Rephrasing the statement slightly, like:
|
| > I am pardoning additional individuals who may continue to
| experience the unnecessary collateral consequences of a
| conviction for simple possession of beer, attempted simple
| possession of beer, or use of beer.
|
| and it sounds utterly obvious, and ludicrous that it ever would
| have been an issue in the first place. I love a good stout or
| porter, and I can walk into just about any grocery store, flash
| my ID, hand over some cash, and walk out with a bottle of drugs
| that's caused far more societal harm than cannabis ever did. That
| I can drink a beer in public and no one bats an eye, while my
| neighbors could smoke a joint in their own house and go to jail
| for it, is insanity.
|
| Good on you, Mr. President, for making life better for a whole
| lot of Americans.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| 100%. The War on Drugs was always in contradiction of the
| spirit of the 21st Amendment, which ended Prohibition.
|
| It needs to be formally acknowledged as such, and further as
| fundamentally unconstitutional, but these kinds of victories
| take time. At least that so-called "War" is destroying fewer
| lives now.
| aaomidi wrote:
| And the 13th amendment, kinda.
|
| It goes against the spirit of it but not the word of it.
| TheCleric wrote:
| The unfortunate part of the 13th amendment was the addendum
| that slavery wasn't slavery if it was part of the prison
| system. Which had the effect that those who wanted to
| continue the slavery system figured out "Oh, we'll just
| criminalize being black, and then we're legal again!"
| dessimus wrote:
| How else was the government to continue to systemically hold
| down minorities in this country post-Civil Rights Act, while
| simultaneously enriching the Military Industrial Complex by
| flooding local law enforcement with military equipment paid
| for by US taxpayers?
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| You act as if they couldn't have gone about this 10,000
| different ways.
|
| This worked because it's what the people wanted - in
| response to the 70s - not because some evil scheming
| overlord.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| No, it's fact, not conspiracy theory.
|
| "You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all
| about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White
| House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and
| black people. You understand what I'm saying?
|
| We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against
| the war or black, but by getting the public to associate
| the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and
| then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those
| communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their
| homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night
| after night on the evening news.
|
| Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we
| did."
|
| ~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for
| Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon
| coeneedell wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman#Drug_war_qu
| ote
| bongodongobob wrote:
| This is one of many many sources. I'm not willing to put
| together a comprehensive list of something that is so
| well known.
| Supermancho wrote:
| Families often raise a concern about how they never knew
| member X to be a baddie (eg The Golden State Killer).
| This is not a compelling refutation. Whether anyone can
| be wrong or lying about anything, is equally weak.
|
| The man said it. I have no doubt.
| astrange wrote:
| The part about "enriching the military industrial
| complex" is certainly a conspiracy theory though. The MIC
| has only ever shrunk in importance in the American
| economy, and giving people their used products is like
| the opposite of enriching them.
| DANmode wrote:
| Normalizing the use of the equipment guarantees
| additional future domestic purchases, subscriptions, and
| other support revenue.
| Levitz wrote:
| Does it really? Do people really think "Ah but of course
| the military needs more money, it's given a good use,
| since the police get it afterwards"?
| ecommerceguy wrote:
| Nixon was certainly an enigma compared to other US
| Presidents: Advocated for "Universal Healthcare" by
| basically mandating the Federal government to provide
| stop loss reinsurance to employers and creating a
| marketplace for poor people with income adjusted
| premiums... sounds familiar.
|
| Created the EPA
|
| Warmonger but hated by the CIA/FBI
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| You're missing the point.
|
| All that was popular as well.
|
| This wasn't some evil mastermind scheme to enrich the
| military industrial complex.
|
| It was run-of-the-mill everyday politics.
|
| The world isn't fair.
|
| That doesn't mean we're all being fooled by some evil
| genius mastermind pulling the strings we can't see.
|
| It just means that people don't care about what's right
| or wrong, mostly - just what they want.
| dessimus wrote:
| It's pretty clear what certain people wanted in response
| to the 70s stemming from the rise of minority groups like
| the Black Panthers or the American Indian Movement trying
| to use their newly-enacted rights to fight oppression.
| Even the NRA was pro gun control when the Black Panthers
| were using the 2A for open-carrying to protect black
| Americans.
|
| If it was truly about marijuana use, then when usage
| rates for white and black Americans are effectively the
| same, black people would not be 3.5 times more likely to
| be arrested for possession than white people.
| dheuoddjo wrote:
| > black people would not be 3.5 times more likely to be
| arrested for possession than white people
|
| While on its face true, this isn't taking into account
| things like recidivism or multiple charges.
|
| That's to say the average black person has more priors
| and is more likely to have multiple charges when charged
| compared to the average white.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| I think the thing you said about priors is repeating a
| talking point about prosecution or sentencing disparities
| that isn't particularly relevant in the context of an
| arrest.
|
| I have no idea what you mean about multiple charges.
| dheuoddjo wrote:
| > I think the thing you said about priors is repeating a
| talking point about prosecution or sentencing disparities
| that isn't particularly relevant in the context of an
| arrest.
|
| Arrests don't occur in a vacuum. The prior convictions
| are known and are a factor.
|
| > I have no idea what you mean about multiple charges.
|
| Person A is smoking pot and is arrested. Person B is
| smoking pot wearing a bloody t shirt with a knife in his
| hand. If you're more likely to engage in criminal
| activity, you're more likely to be smoking pot while
| engaging in criminal activity (again, on average).
| iudqnolq wrote:
| > If you're more likely to engage in criminal activity,
| you're more likely to be smoking pot while engaging in
| criminal activity (again, on average).
|
| I think a slightly simpler way of putting your point is
| that Black people are more likely to be serious criminals
| than white people. Am I missing some nuance?
| 0ct4via wrote:
| Yes, and if person A and B are white American and African
| American, the AA smoker is much more likely to be
| actually arrested, rather than given a warning, etc. at
| the officer's discretion.
|
| Dog whistles about unknowns like previous convictions or
| criminal history, and fictitious scenarios attempting to
| justify your point, don't actually help you the way you
| think they do.
|
| If you're ignorant enough to think there isn't a
| disproportionately racist response in the WoD and the
| application of anti-cannabis laws on the citizenry, you
| need to open your eyes.
|
| Attempting to claim "the prior convictions are known and
| are a factor" without admitting the disproportionate
| affect race has on such convictions being sought in the
| first place, is ignorant.
|
| "Arrests don't occur in a vacuum." - If you deliberately
| and willfully ignore the existence of racism in the
| policing and justice systems, then you're not considering
| all the factors - and are being misinformed at best, and
| deliberately disingenuous at worst.
|
| For example, see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-
| london-67214409 - a world championship medallist and
| Olympian sprinter were arrested on entirely fictitious
| charges of having suspected drugs and weapons - with no
| basis, and with no evidence of such items being found.
|
| If you can't see how the factor of race fits into the
| application of these laws against certain citizens more,
| that's your failure - it's nothing new.
| Levitz wrote:
| None of what you say counters their point. At the end of
| the day African Americans commit a disproportionate
| amount of crime, it would be a miracle if they didn't
| have more prior convictions on average.
| 0ct4via wrote:
| They're trying to denounce the racial aspect of
| likelihood of being targeted/prosecuted, by going
| "African Americans are more likely to be involved in
| crime already" - which is also inherent on racial biases
| and profiling in the police and criminal justice systems.
|
| The point is that they can't jump to racist dog-whistles
| and then pretend like race isn't a factor in targeting to
| begin with.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Citation needed.
|
| All the stats we have focus around arrests, charges,
| convictions, so any systemic racism in _enforcement_ is
| included.
|
| African Americans being arrested more per capita for a
| crime is not inherently the same as committing more crime
| per capita.
|
| I have a hard time figuring how you could ever prove your
| claim, because how do you show who committed crimes that
| were either not suspects, or crimes that weren't
| discovered or reported?
| secretsatan wrote:
| But if say, one group was more targeted they would have
| more priors and more multiple charges, isn't it just a
| feedback loop?
| jknoepfler wrote:
| I don't think anyone wanted the sweeping disinformation
| campaign about marijuana that flooded both the airwaves
| and law-enforcement training syllabuses that we got from
| the federal government.
|
| It is hard to expect a republic to make sensible
| decisions when it's citizens are being actively
| misinformed. It is also hard to not impute malice on
| people who push blatantly false information.
| claytongulick wrote:
| Good points.
|
| It does make one wonder why, given the history of known
| deception, many people have recently seemed to abandon
| all critical thought and fervently believe whatever the
| government tells them.
| fragmede wrote:
| Richard Nixon is widely recognized as said scheming
| overlord, with the drug policies he enacted.
| mattnewton wrote:
| It's very hard to read this article without concluding
| that Nixon was such a scheming overlord leading the
| charge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
| nailer wrote:
| Cannabis laws applied to all Americans.
| asterix_pano wrote:
| They are not enforced the same way to all, though.
| benlivengood wrote:
| At the discretion of both law enforcement officers and
| prosecutors.
| 0ct4via wrote:
| "Application" depends purely on enforcement and the
| discretion of (a) the arresting officer, and then (b) the
| justice system further down the line.
|
| You can't deny that the WoD and cannabis prosecutions in
| particular have disproportionately targeted African
| Americans and other minorities.
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| Measured by annual average alcohol consumption in the US
| before and after prohibition, the 21st amendment was a huge
| success.
|
| I think temporary society-scale prohibition when drug use
| becomes a widespread societal ill is good policy. Afterward,
| individual mandatory punishment/rehab for those who abuse
| drugs/alcohol and harm themselves and others should be the
| norm.
| kstrauser wrote:
| > Measured by annual average alcohol consumption in the US
| before and after prohibition, the 21st amendment was a huge
| success.
|
| That begs the question by assuming that's a good
| measurement. Is it? Since prohibition ended, has alcohol
| become so uniquely destructive here (compared to all other
| alcohol-allowing societies) that we've wanted to ban it
| again? I'm of the strong opinion that it's not.
|
| > I think temporary society-scale prohibition when drug use
| becomes a widespread societal ill is good policy.
|
| Add that to the long list of things I agree with in
| principle, but reject in practice. Our timeline of such
| experiments is a series of social disasters.
|
| In any case, I think there a clearly distinct categories of
| drugs. I don't want to live around meth users, because drug
| itself makes them paranoid, irritable, and hard to be near.
| I couldn't care less if my next door neighbor smokes weed.
| unstatusthequo wrote:
| Well, not all states have drugs laws that are absurd. At least
| one decent thing about California, Oregon, and Washington is
| some sensibility about legalizing or at least not prosecuting
| non-dangerous drugs. But, sad to say the ultra
| religious/conservative states are still stuck in legacy
| reasoning and it will take generations to change minds. And
| yes, alcohol is much worse than marijuana, shrooms, LSD.
| r2_pilot wrote:
| Hey, let's not forget that, somehow, Mississippi has
| decriminalized possession for a very long time now. And more
| than 75% of the voters wanted medicinal marijuana. Now the
| state officials continue to brutally enforce their morals
| against medical patients, having already dragged out the
| legislation to provide a legal framework for medicinal use,
| but that's regrettably hardly unique to medical marijuana
| patients.
| 4RealFreedom wrote:
| The problem is they really just helped out the black market.
| They didn't legalize anything. They stopped prosecuting small
| amounts.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I'm writing this from California, so I was using "neighbors"
| expansively to mean Americans in general. My experience in
| California has shaped how I see the argument. I grew up in
| the Midwest and heard a million reasons why weed was a ticket
| straight to hell. Now that I live somewhere that it's
| completely legal and normal for your average person to
| possess and use it, I can see that, literally, _none_ of the
| dire warnings I 'd been taught have come to pass.
|
| California legalized weed, people who wanted to use it
| started admitting that they use it, and... that's about it.
| Nothing bad happened. If anything, I know people who switched
| from alcohol to weed in the spirit of harm reduction, and
| they seem to be better for it.
| more_corn wrote:
| Decriminalizing drugs and other progressive changes to law
| enforcement have led to some problems in San Francisco and
| Portland. There's a real sense of the breakdown of social
| order.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| > that's caused far more societal harm than cannabis ever did.
|
| Yes, I think this indisputably so. However, the more widely
| cannabis is used the greater the harms seem to be.
| xzel wrote:
| You're right my local bodega has been running out of chips
| and cookies at an alarming rate. Things are getting dangerous
| out there.
| nextaccountic wrote:
| this is true, but the harm is so small (at least when
| compared to alcohol) that it shouldn't meet any threshold for
| prohibition nowadays
| kstrauser wrote:
| In absolute numbers, the harm from weed is increasing as more
| people use it. As a rate, it's a rounding error compared to
| alcohol.
|
| For instance[1]:
|
| "According to the 2022 Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH),
| 29.5 million people ages 12 and older (10.5% in this age
| group) had AUD in the past year."
|
| Compare that to[2]:
|
| "The incidence rate of cannabis-induced psychosis increased
| steadily from 2.8 per 100 000 person years in 2006 to 6.1 per
| 100 000 person years in 2016."
|
| You're orders of magnitude more likely to suffer harm from
| using alcohol than cannabis. I'm saying that as someone who
| enjoys the occasional drink but doesn't use weed; I don't
| have skin in the game.
|
| [1] https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-
| health/alcohol-to...
|
| [2]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31839011/
| loeg wrote:
| Re: alcohol, there are people with Minor in Possession charges
| on their records. It would be good to expunge those, too.
| arrowleaf wrote:
| I've always taken it for granted that stuff like MIPs on your
| record get sealed or expunged once you hit 21. IMO it's silly
| to have it be a mark on your record even temporarily, but
| insane to me that some states don't automatically expunge
| misdemeanors for kids.
| presidentender wrote:
| My MIP was a factor during the background check for my
| security clearance in my early 20s. Since then nobody has
| cared.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The counterargument is that these people are punished not for
| carrying weed, but for breaking the law.
|
| The law could say "nobody shall wear a red tshirt", and I think
| it would then be morally okay to arrest and punish anyone who
| continues to wear red tshirts.
|
| Anyone not okay with the red tshirt law can go get the law
| changed through the usual democratic process. But if they just
| ignore the law and wear a red tshirt anyway, then punish them.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| So you don't consider civil disobedience to be an appropriate
| way to agitate for change?
| firecraker wrote:
| Does something else being worse (alcohol) but acceptable mean
| that an alternative (cannabis) should be acceptable?
|
| If alcohol was not already widely (ab)used in a county would
| they be wrong to prohibit it?
|
| (Note not meant in any form of malice, intended as probing
| questions for discussion)
| atticora wrote:
| That's a good start Joe, keep going.
|
| The scope of the president's pardon power is breathtaking.
| ([T]he power [of clemency] flows from the Constitution alone, not
| from any legislative enactments, and . . . it cannot be modified,
| abridged, or diminished by the Congress.). -- -20Garland, 71 U.S.
| at 380; see also Schick v. Reed, 419 U.S. 256, 266 (1974)
|
| If Trump wins he apparently can pardon everyone with a federal
| Jan6 conviction at will, with no review and as a second term
| president, no voters to answer to. That is motivating to both
| sides. Only the election can tell which side has gained more from
| the reaction to the events.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > If Trump wins he apparently can pardon everyone with a
| federal Jan6 conviction at will, with no review and as a second
| term president, no voters to answer to.
|
| Add on top of that the insider allegations of Trump selling
| pardons for 2 million $ apiece [1], and the list of ...
| sometimes really questionable pardons that were issued [2], and
| it becomes a real issue of national security.
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/giuliani-
| accu...
|
| [2] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/20/politics/trump-pardons-
| co...
| tdba wrote:
| Unethical pardons on the last day in office is a Presidential
| tradition: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich
| adonovan wrote:
| But only for convictions by Federal, not state, courts. That's
| one of the reasons the Georgia case against Trump is
| interesting.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I don't disagree that this is good for those involved or
| affected.
|
| However, nothing stops the same from happening to someone
| tomorrow. The past several administrations have been relying too
| heavily on executive fiat for the optics.
|
| The DEA needs to reschedule it. Anything else is at best a band-
| aid, if not simple lip service to buy votes.
| theklr wrote:
| Rumor is it's a done deal and they're just weaponizing it for
| the election. I despise this is where we've come in political
| theater.
| kredd wrote:
| Would the House ever pass it as it would give a huge win to
| one side? A bit unaware in terms of US politics, but up here
| since legalization, life is exactly as it was before --
| people who smoked just continue to smoke but legally, people
| who don't... don't.
| aaomidi wrote:
| DEA is not controlled by the house.
| kibwen wrote:
| Marijuana cannot be legalized without an act of Congress.
| The executive branch could always just stop enforcing the
| laws passed by the legislative branch, but I thought we
| wanted _less_ executive overreach.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Marijuana cannot be legalized without an act of
| Congress.
|
| Marijuana can be rescheduled without an act of Congress;
| what is on the table is not full legalization (which,
| AFAIK, could also be done within the executive, because
| IIRC drugs can be descheduled by the same process for
| rescheduling) but rescheduling from Schedule I to
| Schedule III.
|
| And by "on the table", I mean the first step -- FDA
| recommendation to DEA -- has already been done.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| The House doesn't have to do anything for rescheduling to
| happen. HHS (one federal agency) has already recommended it
| to DEA (another federal agency), which has the final say
| unless Congress were to affirmatively intervene.
|
| With that said, they aren't proposing to grant federal
| legality to the state-legal recreational marijuana market.
| They are planning to reclassify it from Schedule I (no
| recognized medical use) to Schedule III (the same category
| as anabolic steroids or testosterone and less restricted
| than Adderall), so the proposed federally legal way to get
| it would need a prescription and dispensing by a pharmacy
| or doctor.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| One thing the President might be able to do is to remove
| legally-sourced marijuana use as a disqualification for
| holding a US security clearance. It is also disqualifying
| for other Federal background checks related to buying
| handguns. Maybe the change from Schedule I to Schedule
| III would do this automatically.
| tssva wrote:
| "One thing the President might be able to do is to remove
| legally-sourced marijuana use as a disqualification for
| holding a US security clearance."
|
| Just to clarify, current use of marijuana is a
| disqualification for a security clearance. Past use of
| marijuana is not a disqualifier. When I was a younger man
| I used marijuana, mushrooms, LSD, cocaine and MDMA.
| Several of them very frequently. I disclosed all of this
| prior use and was able to get multiple security
| clearances through the years.
|
| I no longer have nor will in the future have a security
| clearance so I now enjoy my legal weed.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> The House doesn't have to do anything for rescheduling
| to happen._
|
| The entire theme of this thread is "nothing stops the
| same from happening tomorrow". One president can order
| the DEA to reschedule it, and then the next can undo that
| work just as easily. We need a law, not an executive
| fiat. Most of the country is in favor of legalization,
| including most republican voters, so you'd think it would
| be easy to get the house on board, had it not been co-
| opted by right-wing extremists.
| nradov wrote:
| Under current federal law the President doesn't have the
| authority to simply order rescheduling. There is a
| process that must be followed and substantial changes to
| that process would require an Act of Congress.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Would the House ever pass it as it would give a huge win
| to one side?
|
| The House doesn't have to pass it, resecheduling is an
| executive action. (Congress could act to block it by
| legislation, and there is a streamlined process for doing
| that for reg changes in the Congressional Review Act but,
| it would take both Houses and -- since presumably the
| President will support his own administration's regulation
| -- sufficient supermajorities to overcome a veto.)
| mcfedr wrote:
| The house is incapable of passing the most basic of funding
| for national security to let Ukraine win the war, let alone
| something even slightly controversial
| claytongulick wrote:
| Unpacking your statement it seems like you believe two
| things:
|
| 1. That Ukraine winning against Russia is part of United
| States national security.
|
| 2. That the United States providing funding to Ukraine
| would enable them to win against Russia.
|
| Is that correct?
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Do you have a source for this rumor?
| heads wrote:
| The optics, for a modern democratic republic, aren't even that
| fantastic: pardons and proclamations are the acts of Kings.
| Democracies change laws through debate, legislation, and the
| voting by the representatives of the people.
|
| I hope this pardon doesn't dilute the will for more substantive
| drug policy reform.
| NewsyHacker wrote:
| High officials have pardon power in a great many democratic
| republics. And when the country has a parliamentary system
| and government is led by the prime minister, sometimes pardon
| power rests with the president whose position is seen as
| aloof from all the debate and strife in parliament.
| more_corn wrote:
| It will probably set the stage for it.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > The DEA needs to reschedule it.
|
| The DEA needs to have this authority rescinded. They clearly
| cannot be trusted with it, and they have no impetus to remove
| historically misclassified drugs off the list, as it would
| reduce their overall budget.
|
| It's the federal version of the Siebert strategy and it's
| completely injust.
| oooyay wrote:
| > They clearly cannot be trusted with it, and they have no
| impetus to remove historically misclassified drugs off the
| list, as it would reduce their overall budget.
|
| If that's their logic then someone there can't do math.
| Between fentanyl, other opioids, and meth they have plenty to
| do.
| caslon wrote:
| Meth is historically misclassified, too. Why are we drawing
| the line at marijuana?
|
| If we lower the scheduling of opioids to Schedule IV,
| fentanyl usage in the United States would drop almost
| entirely within a month. Importing clean prescription drugs
| from other countries would have low enough risk that the
| reward would be easily met. Odds are, it would also
| undercut wider organized drug crime.
|
| You may find this article in The Economist worth a read:
|
| https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/10/12/joe-biden-is-
| to...
| oooyay wrote:
| First, I don't draw the line at marijuana. Notice how
| many drugs I _didn 't_ list there.
|
| Second, stepping down from fent to heroin, which I think
| is what you're implying, is not going to happen that fast
| and frankly the way you phrased this whitewashes an
| entire series of events that happened that gave fentanyl
| the dominance that it has as a street drug; the
| prescription pill to fentanyl pipeline is one built from
| a cost and strength. For one, it's much cheaper than high
| quality heroin. Second, heroin used to be the dominant
| drug when people couldn't afford prescription pills.
| Peoples tolerances on opioids quickly build and some
| subset of the population were using so much heroin that
| they could more cheaply inject or smoke fent. Going up
| that pipeline can happen in months, going down could take
| years.
|
| The scheduling of the drug is irrelevant to the problem
| that there are and will be people who illegally
| manufacture and sell meth and fent. The DEA has plenty of
| those people to go after, even if we legalize and
| regulate every drug today. Why? Cost. The same way
| prescription pills are a pipeline to fent, meth is the
| final stop in a similar pipeline of stimulants.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| OP is technically incorrect that rescheduling alone would
| solve the fentanyl problem, but not for the reasons you
| state.
|
| > For one, it's much cheaper than high quality heroin.
| Second, heroin used to be the dominant drug when people
| couldn't afford prescription pills. Peoples tolerances on
| opioids quickly build and some subset of the population
| were using so much heroin that they could more cheaply
| inject or smoke fent. Going up that pipeline can happen
| in months, going down could take years.
|
| Fentanyl is cheaper than heroin because of supply-side
| constraints: specifically, fentanyl is produced in larger
| quantities for pharmaceutical purposes, and the illegal
| markets are structured in a way that promotes the
| distribution of fentanyl over the distribution of heroin.
| However, that does _not_ mean that fentanyl is inherently
| cheaper in an abstract sense. If legal restrictions were
| lifted, both fentanyl and heroin would be dramatically
| cheaper than either one is today.
|
| This is, incidentally, another argument in favor of
| maintenance programs. Almost all of the indirect harms
| associated with illicit drug use, and many of the direct
| ones, are a consequence of the legal status and the
| expense (both financial and nonfinancial) associated with
| them.
|
| Clinical trials present overwhelming evidence that, when
| provided with a low-cost, pharmaceutical grade supply of
| heroin, users are able to hold down stable jobs, maintain
| permanenent housing, etc., all things that they
| previously struggled with due to having to spend so much
| time, effort, and money in order to address what is
| fundamentally a medical issue for them.
|
| > The same way prescription pills are a pipeline to fent,
| meth is the final stop in a similar pipeline of
| stimulants.
|
| This is more or less the "gateway drug" theory, and it's
| simply incorrect. There is no "pipeline" of stimulants,
| and to the extent that one can even be argued to exist,
| methamphetamine is not the "final stop" in one.
| oooyay wrote:
| "Gateway drug theory" has to do with going from one class
| of drugs to another. That is not what I described. I
| described usage within a single class of drugs that has
| to do with chemically addictive properties, strength, and
| cost dictating the choice of the next drug.
|
| I can see your argument about cost, but I think it
| ignores that, for instance, tranq is now being used in
| combination with fent. The reason for that isn't cost,
| it's entirely strength and chemically addictive
| properties. I think ignoring those kind of factors falls
| squarely outside of harm reduction. Where your argument
| with cost runs foul is in states like California where
| the legalization and subsequent regulation of the drug
| shot it's cost up. I'd argue marijuana probably doesn't
| need that kind of regulation, but chemically addictive
| substances I think do.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| I believe the Biden administrations has gotten the ball rolling
| in getting the DEA to start the process of investigating it for
| rescheduling. Along with what looks like a few congress people,
| Cortez and Gaetz? I could be wrong on that. Granted, if so, the
| process should get sped up. [1]
|
| But ideally we have the solution on two fronts. The DEA should
| still reschedule it. But Congress should also seriously
| implement a law decriminalizing it.
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/dariosabaghi/2023/07/31/dea-
| hea...
| ethanbond wrote:
| Calling it "for optics" is downplaying the severity of the
| situation. The reason presidents rely so much on executive fiat
| is because our actual legislative system has paralyzed itself
| with partisan politics, gerrymandering, and the filibuster.
|
| Obviously it's intentional that it's hard to pass things, and
| legitimately controversial things should be difficult to pass
| (and shouldn't happen by executive fiat), but there are 2nd and
| 3rd order interests overriding what _should_ be the 1st order
| interest of effective legislation.
|
| Among these 2nd/3rd order interests: not looking bad to your
| party, making the other party look bad to their constituents,
| not upsetting some specific demagogues, not losing personal or
| party power at all costs, winning dunks in social media,
| looking good for the camera, ensuring that no third party could
| emerge, ensuring that if the other party gains power that they
| are incapable of exercising it, etc
| zdragnar wrote:
| The problem with blaming Congress is that the harms could be
| easily mitigated by the DEA changing the scheduling, which
| was my point.
|
| Rumor has it that is in the works, but the fact that it has
| taken so long starts and ends with the executive office.
|
| That said, Congress decriminalizing it entirely is definitely
| something that is going to take too long, and will also be
| entirely the fault of Congress.
| ethanbond wrote:
| DEA rescheduling would be the "executive fiat" and is
| _more_ undo-able than pardons.
|
| The DEA is entirely under the control of the executive. So
| if you want a more permanent solution, the only one is
| legislative, and that is extremely unlikely to happen even
| if there were extremely broad public support.
| zdragnar wrote:
| As I said, I don't mind the pardon for those already
| affected... the problem is it doesn't do anything for
| someone who is charged tomorrow.
|
| Rescheduling buys more time, and unlike other executive
| orders, is actually in line with the intent of Congress
| via the controlled substances act.
| natebc wrote:
| If we can get 2/3 of the state legislatures to agree, and
| 3/4 of them to ratify we can amend the constitution
| without Congress via a Constitutional Convention.
|
| Still long odds but we technically don't HAVE to do it
| with Congress.
|
| https://www.archives.gov/federal-
| register/constitution/artic...
| ethanbond wrote:
| Unfortunately the people closest to achieving this are
| openly wannabe theocrats
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| If we could do that, then we'd have an easy congressional
| majority to do it through congress.
|
| Constitutional amendment is far harder than congressional
| legislation.
| theptip wrote:
| It's true, but every step towards eventual (and IMO inevitable)
| legalization should be celebrated.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| I don't support a train barreling toward derailment just
| because I prefer the view from a moving train.
|
| If there is a single negative consequence from this pardon,
| some sort of Willy Horton moment for Biden, it will
| definitely derail the path to decriminalization and
| strengthen the resolve of the opposition.
|
| I support pardons for miscarriages of the procedures of
| justice, not for freeing incarcerated people for actions that
| are still considered crimes. I guess "hooray, our team won
| today" is what I am supposed to be saying; time will show us
| the good or bad of having chosen the shortcut.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Wait. The DEA sets the "scheduling" of drugs? I always thought
| it was Congress and/or the White House.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Congress set the _initial_ scheduling of some drugs, and set
| a process for updating the schedules within the executive
| branch going forward, with the DEA (in statute, the Attorney-
| General, but in practice within Justice its the DEA doing the
| main work) playing the key role (HHS in statute -- via the
| FDA in practice-- plays a mandatory role in advance of the
| decision, which is controlling in the case of a currently
| non-controlled drug that HHS recommends not controlling, but
| advisory in, I believe, all other cases.)
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| If the ATF can announce rescheduling of a constitutionally
| protected right based on random features, surely the DEA
| can do so as well
| gnicholas wrote:
| For those wondering, it looks like scheduling is done by the
| DEA, FDA, and Congress: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlle
| d_Substances_Act#:~:t....
| minerva23 wrote:
| I try to look at this pardon as a quick, easy, and obvious way
| he can use his limited power to improve people's lives.
|
| Getting the DEA to reschedule it would involve more time and
| more influence than direct power.
|
| That said, I think he should do both, AND that issuing this
| pardon may double as a good way of influencing the DEA.
| mcfedr wrote:
| Does he control the federal agency? He would appoint the
| leadership
| minerva23 wrote:
| I don't know about the power of appointment there and it's
| limitations. Regardless, that's still an influence move.
| It's either trying to influence the existing people in
| power via threat of unemployment, or influencing potential
| replacements with a promise of employment.
| codexb wrote:
| This will have virtually zero effect.
|
| The president only has the power to pardon people convicted or
| accused of violating _federal law_ and prosecuted in federal
| court.
|
| The problem is that nearly all people arrested for simple
| possession of marijuana aren't charged under federal law nor
| prosecuted in federal court. They are charged under state law
| that similarly outlaws marijuana possession and prosecuted in
| state court. The president does not have the power to pardon
| convictions and punishment in state court.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Also applies to people arrested in DC.
| aaomidi wrote:
| The president can however pardon in states using "emergency
| powers".
|
| Our constitution does not define the breadth and depth of
| emergency powers and it would be up for both congress and
| SCOTUS to decide that the president can't do that.
|
| I would hope that a president would just say fuck it and try
| this though. As much as I want things to be done "the right
| way", I value lives of folks more than my neurodivergent desire
| to have things done neatly.
| tptacek wrote:
| I don't think it is the case that the President can use
| "emergency powers" to pardon state crimes; the same argument
| suggests that the President can use those powers to declare
| themselves dictator for life.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Nothing in currently recognized emergency powers allows the
| president to pardon state crimes, and in fact it's very
| clearly settled law that he cannot do so.
|
| No state or federal court is likely to respect or uphold such
| an abuse of power as long as US democracy remains intact ...
| and while US democracy is very much in jeopardy right now, it
| won't vanish before the next president takes over - Biden
| will follow the rules of the democratic system.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I think trying something like this would end very badly for
| the union.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The president can however pardon in states using "emergency
| powers".
|
| No, he can't.
|
| > Our constitution does not define the breadth and depth of
| emergency powers
|
| In our system, federal powers not defined in the Constitution
| _do not exist_.
| zrail wrote:
| Yep. The 10th amendment, in it's entirety:
|
| > The powers not delegated to the United States by the
| Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
| reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
| djur wrote:
| POTUS: I'm pardoning everybody in your state who has a drug
| conviction. STATE GOV: No, you aren't. POTUS: You have to let
| all of those people out of prison. STATE GOV: No, we don't.
| POTUS: It's an emergency! STATE GOV: No, it isn't.
|
| What next? Send in the army?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| It would be appealed to the US Supreme Court.
| cobbal wrote:
| The page mentions DC specifically, which is under federal
| jurisdiction. The headline may indeed be overselling the
| implications.
| williamcotton wrote:
| It mentions the pardons in DC from 2022.
|
| This pardon is for the entire United States, at least at the
| federal level. I don't think kids sitting in a county jail
| for brining a joint to school in west Texas are going
| anywhere, though!
| btilly wrote:
| The page mentions 4 categories of law which are pardoned.
|
| The first is https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-
| title21/html..., which covers the whole country.
|
| The next two are DC specific.
|
| And the last is specific to possession on federal properties.
|
| So no, the headline is not overselling the implications. If
| you simply possessed marijuana and were convicted under
| federal law, your case is going to be pardoned.
| Digory wrote:
| As the proclamation says, the District of Columbia's local laws
| are technically federal laws. So it wipes out the convictions
| of a good number of people in one of our major cities.
|
| I can't quite tell if this applies to military convictions.
| That would be the other area where the Federal government takes
| the time to prosecute something as minor as mere possession or
| use.
|
| Another interesting question: does this actually pardon, or is
| it more like an open call for applications? It looks to me like
| you'd want to get that pardon certificate from the WH Pardon
| lawyer well before the next election.
| qingcharles wrote:
| As a fake lawyer, I would also love to know if this applies
| to military convictions.
|
| What other places outside of DC does federal law apply to?
|
| (without the need for it to be interstate or some other such
| clause that is normally required for federal statutes to
| apply)
|
| Can the president pardon crimes on reservations?
| hx8 wrote:
| I am also a fake lawyer.
|
| Even in legal states, you can get a simple possession
| charge on federal land [0].
|
| [0] https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/olympic/news-
| events/?cid=STEL...
| qingcharles wrote:
| Thank you. I think this rule applies inside federal
| buildings on state land too?
| torstenvl wrote:
| It depends on the statutory scheme for the acquisition of
| the federal land. In some cases the federal government
| has exclusive jurisdiction, in some cases concurrent, and
| in some it only has a proprietary interest (i.e., the
| federal government is the landowner but the state has
| legal jurisdiction).
| hx8 wrote:
| I'm curious if there are standard rules for post offices.
| torstenvl wrote:
| It does not apply to military convictions. Very
| frustrating.
| est31 wrote:
| > What other places outside of DC does federal law apply
| to?
|
| In theory, anything owned by the federal government is
| under federal law. This means federal court houses,
| branches of the fed, federal waters (anything above 3
| geographical miles from shore), national parks, etc.
| Sometimes law enforcement is delegated to state local
| authorities though.
| jeffbee wrote:
| > As the proclamation says, the District of Columbia's local
| laws are technically federal laws. So it wipes out the
| convictions of a good number of people in one of our major
| cities.
|
| According to the report that preceded this action, more than
| 75% of all federal possession convictions were prosecuted in
| Arizona. Apparently it was just a rogue jurisdiction.
|
| There are a number of totally bonkers details scattered
| around this report. https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-
| reports/weighing-impa...
| couchand wrote:
| > the District of Columbia's local laws are technically
| federal laws.
|
| Cannabis has been legal in DC for 8 years. See Initiative 71.
| sigzero wrote:
| > I can't quite tell if this applies to military convictions.
|
| No, because it would still violate the UCMJ. The UCMJ would
| have to change.
| torstenvl wrote:
| No. The President has the power to pardon violations of the
| UCMJ. There is no statutory change that would have to be
| made.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| My guess would be that by the president pardoning these crimes,
| it would potentially make it more acceptable for governors to
| do the same for state level crimes.
|
| However, it still doesn't solve the overarching issue of
| draconian drug laws.
| cm2187 wrote:
| And when they are charged under federal law, it is often a
| negotiated downgrade from distribution, i.e. people rarely get
| sentenced for mere possession.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Believe it or not, I actually know someone who was federally
| charged for possession of marijuana in the last few years.
|
| He worked as a mover and moved someone onto a military base (in
| a decriminalized state). He forgot he had his weed in his
| jacket pocket when they got searched entering the base. Didn't
| get jail, but did get probation and a record of it.
| badrabbit wrote:
| > The president only has the power to pardon people convicted
| or accused of violating federal law and prosecuted in federal
| court.
|
| The president can pardon any offense against the united states
| except impeachment. State offenses have always been left to
| governors to pardon but states are what make the united states
| and as such state offenses while violating only state law, they
| are an offense against a state that is part of the union and
| affect a citizen of the union, as such the president has
| ulitmate power to pardon.
|
| This is similar to how state legal dispute or prosecution can
| ultimately be decided by the supreme court of the united
| states. It does not stop at the state's supreme court.
|
| If trump gets elected next year for example, he can pardon
| himself of his upcoming likely conviction in georgia. Else you
| have a situation where in 2028 as soon as he leaves office he
| becomes a wanted criminal.
|
| Presidents know that pardoning a stare criminal is overriding
| state law and alienating voters from that state and risking
| rifts in the union.
|
| I believe the president supersedes state governors in every
| power they have except things like appointments and firings at
| the state level.
| masfuerte wrote:
| It seems weird that it excludes foreign nationals who are no
| longer resident. Why not just pardon everyone who was convicted?
| tessierashpool wrote:
| the law is always complicated
| u32480932048 wrote:
| "because reasons" isn't actually a good justification for a
| system that's broken and corrupted beyond all repair
| taneq wrote:
| No but "because 27 pages of boring and annoying backstory
| which are logically consistent but result in an outcome you
| don't like for seemingly arbitrary reasons" is potentially
| a good justification even if it sucks and is boring and
| tl;dr.
|
| You wouldn't argue that a mathematical proof is more than 2
| pages long and therefore doesn't count, right?
| jmye wrote:
| Do you generally assume anything potentially complicated,
| or anything that hasn't been specifically explained to you,
| is automatically specious?
| giarc wrote:
| >Why not just pardon everyone who was convicted?
|
| The argument I've heard is that many with simple possession on
| their record may have actually pleaded down from a different
| crime, and that needs to be taken into consideration.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| > The argument I've heard is that many with simple possession
| on their record may have actually pleaded down from a
| different crime, and that needs to be taken into
| consideration.
|
| How is this related to nationality or residence?
| earthling8118 wrote:
| It shouldn't need to. What good is a plea deal if you have to
| work around it because the charge was originally different?
| Either you have had the charge reduced or you haven't.
| Handling this any other way isn't good.
| theptip wrote:
| It's a concession to not seem weak on illegal immigration. If
| illegal immigrants were pardoned that would be ammo for the
| Republicans in election season.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| [dupe]
|
| Merge, or some more over here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38736184
| djha-skin wrote:
| I didn't know blanket pardons were legal. Kind of feels like he's
| on shaky ground here. If this were allowed then all future
| presidents could veto in perpetuity any criminal law created by
| Congress.
|
| Speaking of which, his pardon only pardons those who have
| violated federal or DC laws, not state laws.
| aaomidi wrote:
| I mean, they have been. Trump pardoned so many people in his
| last few weeks.
| tptacek wrote:
| There is a long history of blanket pardons, isn't there?
| Digory wrote:
| Yes, this seems like a constitutional test. If you need this
| pardon to stand up, you'd better get the certificate from the
| WH pardon lawyer with your name on it.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Jimmy Carter did the same almost half a century ago by
| granting a blanket pardon to Vietnam war draft dodgers, and
| all of them have lived to a ripe old age without being taken
| to court to test the pardon.
| sparrish wrote:
| This only applies to federal "possession or use", which nearly
| never happens.
|
| Those convicted of "possession or use" are nearly 100% plea down
| cases when the actual offense was sales, distribution, or
| manufacturing.
| riffic wrote:
| it used to happen a lot, and this also applies to the district
| of columbia.
| justrealist wrote:
| Essentially none of those people are still in prison.
| riffic wrote:
| but with a record can they get jobs, pass a background
| check, et cetera?
|
| This pardon is a good thing, why are we discussing it like
| it's not a move in the right direction?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Unfortunately everything in life is political now, so you
| can't just say, "Glad this happened" if you have some
| other unrelated gripe -- you need to downplay it, imply
| it's only for optics, say it doesn't go far enough, etc.
| etc.
| vvvvvvvvvvvv wrote:
| they might be on probation tho
| dragonwriter wrote:
| And if this was merely a commutation, that would matter
| more. But pardons don't just end sentences, they remove all
| lasting legal impacts of the conviction.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| _> Those convicted of "possession or use" are nearly 100% plea
| down cases when the actual offense was sales, distribution, or
| manufacturing._
|
| Not true at all - guess what charge you catch if you are caught
| smoking on a chairlift at a ski resort on Federal land or if
| you're on a hike in a National park.
|
| Thousands of people every year;
|
| https://www.nydailynews.com/2013/09/16/marijuana-busts-on-fe...
| pengaru wrote:
| Symbolic half-measure having little to no actual impact.
|
| They _should_ just legalize marijuana federally, that would be
| _real_ change with _tangible_ consequences.
|
| This is shallow campaigning for reelection, in lieu of actual
| legalization.
| feoren wrote:
| Nobody should ever fix anything unless they can fix
| _everything_!
| pengaru wrote:
| > Nobody should ever fix anything unless they can fix
| everything!
|
| Oh please. "Fix _everything_ " in this context would be
| legalizing _all_ drugs federally.
|
| This fixes _nothing_ except perhaps shifting some public
| perception in the minds of voters that don 't look past the
| headlines.
| astrange wrote:
| Pretty sure the people getting pardoned like it.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Missouri and Ohio have both legalized recreational home
| cultivation in the last year; the first two red states to do so.
| Hard to overstate what an achievement that is. Prohibition is
| more or less over at this point, outside of the deep red south.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Having grown up in Missouri, you could have knocked me over
| with a feather when that happened. They _what?!_
| helmor wrote:
| From Ohio. Can't speak for Missouri, but the reality here is
| that like most states, it's a rural-urban divide more than a
| "the whole state is red." Ohio has a solid red majority,
| especially in the legislature, but the cities are very blue
| and there are plenty of moderates. So I think those groups
| passed it, but you could see the conservative legislators
| were none too happy about it and were going to fight
| implementation tooth and nail, just like they'd like to do
| with abortion protections. There is sadly a pretty strong
| division as with many issues in this country, but enough of a
| majority to move the needle at least.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| One moral risk we play is does legalizing our recreational drug
| (eg alcohol/cannibis) increase the harm done to addicts[0]? While
| I maintain that there's a logical inconsistency to having legal
| alcohol and illegal cannabis, I'm on the fence if the consistency
| should be that both are somehow controlled/illegal (though
| absolutely not criminal).
|
| Another thought on the subject is how many small charges were
| simply because the police were fairly sure the defendant was up
| to some other crime, but were unable to make a court case over it
| (due to difficulty of evidence etc)? It may be that it was hard
| to prove the accused was doing X, but the bag of weed in their
| pocket was undeniable...
|
| Just musings don't get too aflame over them...
|
| [0]: https://www.newsweek.com/americas-heaviest-drinkers-
| consume-...
| lokar wrote:
| Along that line of thinking, if you prohibit alcohol and
| cannabis (and I assume tobacco?) to protect addicts, what about
| casino gambling? How about micro-transaction games that are
| gambling in all but name?
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I mean those should _actually_ be prohibited.
| Dolototo wrote:
| It's not logical to solve any drug problem by making it
| illegal.
|
| Illegal means that we don't want people to help, it means we
| don't want them to do something between don't like it.
|
| Otherwise it doesn't make sense that the result is jail as jail
| is for punishment (it shouldn't) and not for rehabilitation.
| noncoml wrote:
| > It may be that it was hard to prove the accused was doing X,
| but the bag of weed in their pocket was undeniable...
|
| Your point being?
| proto-n wrote:
| Your argument about marijuana being easier to prove is a very
| bad scenario, regardless of how common it is/used to be. By the
| same logic why not make it illegal to wear socks, it would
| provide reason for the system to punish anybody they are
| 'fairly sure' is up to some other crime.
| gchamonlive wrote:
| What about sugar? Processed meat and fat? Carcinogenics in
| general? What is the extent of the control we are willing to
| relinquish to the government in order to control substance
| abuse?
|
| And how about shifting the discussion from prohibition and
| control of use to the democatization of healthcare access for
| people to heal from addiction, if we are so interested in the
| welfare of addicts at this point?
| 127361 wrote:
| The arguments we made for drug prohibition started spreading
| to other areas of society. So the prohibitionist mindset was
| expanding, with potentially disastrous consequences for
| innocent people caught up in it.
| kennywinker wrote:
| I'd like governments to continue to regulate how corporations
| can use and productize addictive and damaging substances.
| Heroin in big macs would, i'm sure, sell well.
| tryitnow wrote:
| I support full legalization of cannabis and I agree that those
| are valid concerns.
|
| Yes, the harm done to addicts will probably increase. There's
| always trade offs. I think people on the pro-legalization side
| are not doing enough to address this.
|
| One of the problems with public discourse is that each side
| doesn't want to give an inch to the other side. I think a lot
| of people who support legalization of cannabis kinda know that
| harms to addicts might increase, but they're afraid that if
| they mention that then that will just give a talking point to
| the prohibitionists.
|
| Both sides are guilty of misusing or ignoring facts and
| concerns that don't benefit their preferred take on the issue.
| However, it seems to me the prohibitionists are far more
| egregious when it comes making bad arguments.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > While I maintain that there's a logical inconsistency to
| having legal alcohol and illegal cannabis, I'm on the fence if
| the consistency should be that both are somehow
| controlled/illegal (though absolutely not criminal).
|
| "Illegal but not criminal" for a drug just means a very
| clumsily implemented tax, if you want to do that, it would
| strictly be better to just _do a tax_.
|
| > Another thought on the subject is how many small charges were
| simply because the police were fairly sure the defendant was up
| to some other crime, but were unable to make a court case over
| it (due to difficulty of evidence etc)? It may be that it was
| hard to prove the accused was doing X, but the bag of weed in
| their pocket was undeniable...
|
| Eliminating crimes whose main use is as an end-run around
| probable cause (for arrest) and proof beyond a reasonable doubt
| (for conviction) on _other_ crimes (and thus, which exist to be
| selectively used to end-run due process) is an unqualified good
| thing.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| No one should go to jail because the police are "fairly sure".
| analog31 wrote:
| >>> Another thought on the subject is how many small charges
| were simply because the police were fairly sure the defendant
| was up to some other crime, but were unable to make a court
| case over it (due to difficulty of evidence etc)? It may be
| that it was hard to prove the accused was doing X, but the bag
| of weed in their pocket was undeniable...
|
| Then don't prosecute them. It's supposed to be hard to convict
| people.
| theptip wrote:
| No. Criminalization does more harm than benefit.
|
| For the vast majority of drug users that are not addicted, this
| is obvious.
|
| And for the addicts, criminalization is the last thing they
| need. Deterrence might prevent a few people from getting
| addicted, but not many. A lot of drug addiction is downstream
| of homelessness and mental health issues meaning the illegality
| is a very weak deterrent for the most vulnerable.
|
| If we pushed even half of the money spent policing the war on
| drugs into homelessness support, mental health services, and
| addiction counseling and harm minimization like needle
| exchanges, we'd see a huge reduction in harm.
|
| The current regime is not really interested in harm reduction;
| there is no effort to compare interventions based on objective
| harm metrics. Instead non-harm metrics like arrest rates and
| usage are chased. The policies start from Puritanism and
| historical racism and justify themselves claiming to care about
| harm after the fact.
|
| To your second point... I think the racial discrimination baked
| into the history of drug enforcement should steer us away from
| giving police more excuses to incarcerate on their discretion.
| But even ignoring that, I don't think we should support "we
| knew but could not provide evidence to prove guilt", the
| justice system requires evidence for a reason.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > Another thought on the subject is how many small charges were
| simply because the police were fairly sure the defendant was up
| to some other crime, but were unable to make a court case over
| it (due to difficulty of evidence etc)? It may be that it was
| hard to prove the accused was doing X, but the bag of weed in
| their pocket was undeniable...
|
| That is an _excellent_ argument _in favor_ of legalization, not
| one against. What you 're describing is selective enforcement
| and prosecution, and the use of it as a tool to arrest and
| convict someone _because they can 't be proven to have
| committed some other crime_.
| itronitron wrote:
| Do you have any thoughts pertaining to the legal status of
| products containing nicotine?
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Its macabre that I can walk into a nice clean store and get
| personalized service to buy something that thousands are sitting
| in prison for.
| qingcharles wrote:
| That is fairly wild when you phrase it like that. Especially as
| you could literally be 100ft from someone getting cuffs put on
| who is across the border in another state, while you are
| getting gold treatment in a dispensary trying to figure out
| what strain you want.
| grecy wrote:
| Sadly you can say that about abortion now too.
| maxiepoo wrote:
| It is very bad that abortion is illegal but thousands of
| people have not been imprisoned for violating abortion laws
| afaik.
| 127361 wrote:
| About time. Finally the harm caused by possession offenses is
| starting to be recognized by the state.
|
| If they want to ban drugs in general, then they should prosecute
| those supplying it and those producing it for sale. Not private
| individuals consuming it in their own homes, and causing
| absolutely no harm to anyone. And those who are consuming it in
| public while presenting a danger to others, that can be made
| illegal. Failing that, they can outright ban public consumption.
| bluish29 wrote:
| > Not private individuals consuming it in their own homes, and
| causing absolutely no harm to anyone
|
| Considering that there is -at least- a correlation between
| substance abuse and domestic abuse [1,2]. I wouldn't be so sure
| to say "absolutely no harm" in this case.
|
| [1] https://www.gov1.com/public-health/articles/the-link-
| between...
|
| [2] https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/59/5/1035/5486457
| 127361 wrote:
| I meant individuals living on their own in that case. By all
| means increase the penalties for the abuse if it's proven to
| be fueled by drugs.
| bluish29 wrote:
| That's fair, that's an edge case of the law but probably is
| not the general trend.
| dilippkumar wrote:
| As an immigrant, this stood out to me:
|
| > ... I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., do hereby grant a full, complete,
| and unconditional pardon to all current United States citizens
| and lawful permanent residents who ...
|
| > ... This pardon does not apply to individuals who were non-
| citizens not lawfully present in the United States at the time of
| their offense.
|
| In the first of the above, it specifically states that it applies
| to citizens and lawful permanent residents. In the second, it
| says it does not apply to people who didn't have valid
| immigration status.
|
| So, what happens to someone who had a valid immigration status,
| but was not a lawful permanent resident? For example, someone on
| a student or a tourist visa?
|
| Can anyone with legal expertise shed some light on how such
| things are usually resolved? My naive expectation would be that
| it still would only apply to citizens and lawful permanent
| residents. But then, why specifically call out that it doesn't
| apply to this specific group out of many other groups that aren't
| covered under "citizens or lawful permanent residents"?
| leviathant wrote:
| >So, what happens to someone who had a valid immigration
| status, but was not a lawful permanent resident? For example,
| someone on a student or a tourist visa?
|
| I brought my wife over on the 90 day fiancee visa well before
| there was a TV show about it, and mostly because it was the
| only way we could hang out. Thankfully we lucked out, and
| celebrated our 20th anniversary earlier this year.
|
| But to the point: When you're dealing with DHS and immigration,
| it's made absolutely clear that if you screw anything up,
| you're kicked out of the country and it's going to be a
| ballache to get back in. It's not surprising that they were not
| included in the blanket pardon, and I think that's actually
| pretty reasonable, even though I also think that incarceration
| over marijuana possession is absurd and has been pretty
| devastating to the lives of millions of people and the
| communities they live in.
|
| The amount of work you have to do to qualify for a visa, and to
| move between the different statuses (there are fun periods
| where your status is just... pending. When we went through
| this, there was nothing you have to show for this except for a
| generic looking letter from DHS. All your fancy documentation
| is sitting in a US Gov't inbox somewhere while they make sure
| you're not a terrorist) and, frankly, if you manage to get
| arrested for smoking weed while you're on a visa, you're kind
| of an idiot.
|
| We didn't even travel outside the country until my wife got her
| full-fledged citizenship. And when she applied for that, they
| gave her a hard time over the speeding tickets she'd gotten
| while here.
|
| Whether you agree with the concept or not, visitors to the
| country are told pretty clearly that the rules apply extra hard
| to them, and the consequences of not following very basic rules
| are going to be extra inconvenient. You get caught breaking the
| law, you risk losing your visa status and losing the ability to
| ever visit the country again.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Not a lawyer or other credentialed legal expert, but used to
| closely reading legal documents:
|
| > So, what happens to someone who had a valid immigration
| status, but was not a lawful permanent resident?
|
| If they are a _currently_ a citizen or lawful permanent
| resident (the first piece you quote is about the status you
| have to have to _receive_ the pardon now) and they were a
| citizen or a lawfully-present non-citizen at the time of the
| offense (the second part is explicitly about status at the time
| of offense) they are pardoned.
|
| If they are not a citizen or lawful permanent resident _now_
| (even if they are in legal status now and at the time of the
| offense), no pardon.
|
| If they were a non-citizen that was not legally present at the
| time of the offense, but are a citizen or lawful permanent
| resident now (because of the interaction between immigration
| and law enforcement, that's difficult but not entirely
| impossible), also no pardon.
|
| You have to both have been in the right status at the time of
| the offense and the _narrower_ right status at the time of the
| pardon to qualify.
| didgeoridoo wrote:
| For reference, as of January 2022 there were ZERO people in
| federal custody solely for simple possession of marijuana[0].
|
| As a gesture, this seems fine. But the continued presence of
| cannabis on Schedule I makes an absolute mockery out of our
| entire code of laws.
|
| [0]: https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/weighing-
| impa...
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| But the pardon can allow those with convictions on their record
| to live a normal life.
|
| Edit: major caveat, all the data harvesting and background
| check firms generally do not proactively purge their data sets
| as they're supposed to. It's your obligation to follow up with
| every single one of them individually, and there are a whole
| lot of them, they operate under the radar, and it's hard to
| contact them. Finally it's impossible to verify they actually
| did.
| justinclift wrote:
| > Finally it's impossible to verify they actually did.
|
| Sounds like an opportunity for someone to set up a service
| which does. Do the verification I mean. :)
| stonogo wrote:
| Sure, but thousands of people now have one less obstacle to
| passing a background check for a job, etc. I agree with you
| about the scheduling, but this is more than a gesture, and will
| have a material impact on a lot of people, especially in DC.
| sakopov wrote:
| > Just over 300 people -- or 0.5% of the total prison
| population -- are behind bars for any sort of drug possession.
| [1]
|
| If anything it'll help some folks to have a their records
| cleaned up.
|
| [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/bidens-marijuana-pardons-
| won...
| crtified wrote:
| I agree with your point.
|
| But the quoted statistic is confusing. Under what specifics
| would 300 people = 0.5% of the total prison population? As I
| understand it, the total prison population of the USA is over
| 1 million, and the subset designated 'federal prisoners' is,
| by itself, over 200,000.
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| Not to mention makes it impossible to get a job at a company
| which has government contracts, because they require drug
| tests.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Hot take- I don't use cannabis and I like that cannabis use
| disqualifies a lot of my competitors in the job market.
| drevil-v2 wrote:
| At university two of my friends went down a dark road with
| Marijuana use. One destroyed his very bright future - went from a
| top student to a dropout. The other one had severe mental
| psychosis episodes, the last one being where he physically
| threatened other students with a knife and was arrested and
| subsequently medically repatriated back to his home country - his
| parents were financially ruined by the cost of getting him home.
|
| I am not sure that this is as black and white as some people make
| it out to be. Complete freedom to do whatever one pleases is not
| Utopia. There is a limit if one wants a functioning society that
| is on the whole safe and high trust.
| cozzyd wrote:
| Yes, while with alcohol, nobody has ruined their future or
| physically threatened others.
| joquarky wrote:
| Utopia is not achievable, and the path to hell is laid with
| good intentions.
|
| > There is a limit if one wants a functioning society that is
| on the whole safe and high trust.
|
| We all have different thresholds on where that limit lies. In
| the film Demolition Man, Dr. Raymond Cocteau's vision of a safe
| San Angeles did not allow sports, swearing, eating meat, or
| consuming sugar or caffeine because they are "bad" for you.
| akomtu wrote:
| This proclamation has essentially freed slaves held by the prison
| complex, and I bet it will try to claw back an equal amount on
| inmates by other means in the coming years. Maybe DUI and traffic
| laws will become harsher.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I live in an area where private consumption is de facto legal.
|
| A neighbor of mine would smoke weed constantly.
|
| A young woman would come to his apartment every month or so. He
| would open the door, invite her in, and she would refuse. They
| would talk at the door for about five minutes while marijuana
| smoke drifted into the hall. Then she'd leave.
|
| One day I asked she was his daughter, she said laughed and said,
| "No, I'm his parole officer!"
|
| So it's pretty legal for indoors purposes.
|
| But - it's not de facto legal in public. This is a big issue in
| public parks. Nobody wants their kids to share a park with
| potheads.
|
| Same applies for alcohol and tobacco.
|
| I'm fine with legalizing pot under the same conditions as alcohol
| - in your residence, buying from authorized dealers, high taxes,
| review boards, etc.
|
| But just look at the high number of alcohol related crimes. Not
| just drunk driving, but public intoxication too.
|
| Don't expect legality pot to make the illegal uses go away.
| People will stop buy from illegal dealers, which will continue to
| be prosecuted (they don't pay taxes).
|
| It won't do much good or harm.
| cheeze wrote:
| > Nobody wants their kids to share a park with potheads
|
| I see this as no different than alcohol or tobacco (which you
| also called out)
|
| Growing up and not having a place to smoke, we'd always go to a
| park. But we'd go deep into the woods, etc. last thing we
| wanted to do was inconvenience someone else, leading to us
| getting caught.
|
| Same is true of when we drank booze. No need to do it in front
| of a family.
| shipscode wrote:
| Do guns next.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Isn't possession of guns already legal?
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Much like The adoption of the Montreal Protocol on Substances
| that Deplete the Ozone Layer had no long term downsides and
| "fixed" the Ozone hole [1], this action is an unequivocal good
| and there are no long term downsides from my perspective.
|
| [1]https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/rebuilding-
| ozone...
| fyrn_ wrote:
| This pardon applies only to federal possession and use sentences,
| still a nice gesture, but it's a small percentage of convictions
| as federal prosecution of these charges is rare. More important
| for it's symbolic effects then for the actual direct results
| al_borland wrote:
| I don't get how there can be a blanket pardon on the books for
| federal crimes, while still being illegal at a federal level.
| The pardon should have come along with legalization, and
| putting it on the same level as alcohol. The current situation
| feels ridiculous.
| torstenvl wrote:
| I don't understand why he's singling out military veterans not to
| receive this pardon. It's very frustrating. Violations under
| Article 112a, UCMJ, solely for use of marijuana, should also be
| included.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I don't understand why he's singling out military veterans
| not to receive this pardon.
|
| Nothing in the text of the pardon does that is "singling out"
| veterans.
|
| It doesn't pardon UCMJ violations, but it absolutely includes
| military veterans with federal civilian convictions (unless
| they were in unsatisfactory immigration status at the time of
| the offense.)
|
| Not including military offenses is a different thing than
| singling out veterans.
| torstenvl wrote:
| Fine. I don't understand why he's singling out military
| veterans _with military convictions_ not to receive this
| pardon. It 's significant disparate treatment in a way that
| precludes a significant benefit from going to a group of
| people of whom 100% have served this country.
|
| EDIT: And no, Parker v. Levy is not a valid justification for
| this, as the conduct was equally criminalized in both the
| military and the civilian world. Furthermore, Parker v. Levy
| and related cases are only relevant on what is _lawful_ to
| make different in the military justice system, not what is
| good policy. Nobody is saying the President _cannot_ exercise
| the pardon power in a way that discriminates against military
| members; the pardon power is plenary. I am saying he _shouldn
| 't_.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I don't understand why he's singling out military
| veterans with military convictions not to receive this
| pardon.
|
| There's a fairly consistent throughline in the theory of
| the law (that gets to the reason there even is a UCMJ in
| the first place) that military discipline is categorically
| distinct from civilian criminal law, and under that theory
| possession of marijuana contrary to military regulations is
| meaningfully distinct from simple possession in the
| civilian context.
|
| Its also, to be fair, pretty clear that, clear and crisp as
| the theory may be, _in practice_ that 's more of a
| _statistical difference in significance_ than a
| _categorical one_. But even a statistical difference can,
| arguably, justify the normal case-by-case approach to
| clemency rather than a blanket approach.
| gregsher88 wrote:
| "As I have said before, convictions for simple possession of
| marijuana have imposed needless barriers to employment, housing,
| and educational opportunities."
|
| This has always seemed like cruel and unusual punishment to me.
| Effectively a life sentence for misdemeanor crimes. This is a
| good first step, but it does not go far enough.
| culi wrote:
| Can someone explain how this differs from the last time Biden
| "pardoned people for marijuana offenses" in October of 2022?
| nataliste wrote:
| The election is in a year rather than a month.
| thsksbd wrote:
| Good for them, of course. The cynic in me, however, can help but
| notice that that's a lot of people whose voting rights have just
| been restored.
| pseudosavant wrote:
| And the cynic in me wonders why you think people having their
| voting rights rightfully restored is bad or suspect?
| thsksbd wrote:
| I don't think it's bad. What made you think I think that?
|
| I do think our current president is a swine of a human being
| who cares nothing for others but his immediate family.
| Evidence for this is that he himself is largely responsible
| for our draconian drug laws when it suited him politically,
| and now as his progressive wing is deserting him (for
| excellent reasons) he's politically motivated to do the right
| thing in view of an election he'd in a pickle to win.
|
| I don't mind people voting rights restored with good reason.
| I do mind people who use others as a means to an end.
| ericcumbee wrote:
| probably not as many as you may think. If I am reading the
| federal statutes right simple possession in most cases is a
| misdemeanor. it also targets the district of columbia which
| votes so heavily democrat it does not really matter from an
| electoral perspective.
| pavelstoev wrote:
| Say no to drugs.
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