A coalition of drug policy reform advocates is seeking to “correct the record” on the Biden administration’s marijuana policy achievements, calling attention to unfulfilled campaign promises to Black and brown communities on cannabis reform and criticizing the limitations of incremental rescheduling.
During a virtual press briefing organized by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) on Wednesday, representatives of multiple equity-focused cannabis organizations pushed back on the administration’s modest reform steps, contending that anything short of ending federal marijuana criminalization would represent a disservice to the communities most impacted under prohibition.
Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal affairs at DPA, stressed during the briefing that moving marijuana to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has recommended to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), is “something that our communities cannot accept.”
“As long as marijuana remains anywhere on the CSA, the harms of federal marijuana criminalization will continue,” she said.
Cat Packer, vice chair of the Cannabis Regulators of Color Coalition (CRCC) and director of drug markets and legal regulation at DPA, said the Biden administration’s commentary around its marijuana policy achievements “illustrates the need for Black and brown communities to correct the record of what promises have been made to our communities and whether any promises have been kept.”
President Joe Biden campaigned on a pledge to federally decriminalize marijuana—and he’s said repeatedly that nobody should be incarcerated over cannabis. But despite granting pardons for people who’ve committed certain federal marijuana possession offenses and directing a scheduling review, those broader promises have not yet been achieved.
“Rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III—the outcome that is anticipated to result from the Biden administration’s actions—would continue the very criminalization that Biden said that he would end and is the very type of incrementalism that [Vice President Kamala Harris] criticized in 2020,” Packer said. “Where’s the accountability to Black and brown communities to whom these reforms were promised?”
Hellbound and Down 