Cannabis wasn't part of Joe Biden's candidacy in 2020, but in the years since he has made it part of his presidency. With an election on the horizon in 2024, it's fair to ask if he's as committed to cannabis as he makes it seem.
Historically speaking, Biden was not a fan of cannabis. As a U.S. senator, he was as anti-drug as it gets. In 2020, he was arguably the most anti-cannabis Democratic candidate in a field that included democratic-socialist Bernie Sanders, uber-progressive Elizabeth Warren and millennial Pete Buttigieg, to name a few.
But since becoming president, Biden has come around to the plant. Under his administration, cannabis is doing as well as it ever has, and Biden is probably the most pro-cannabis president we've ever had.
In early October 2022, Biden's administration pardoned thousands of cannabis users and asked multiple federal agencies to reconsider cannabis' position in Schedule I of the DEA's Controlled Substances Act.
Those agencies have since reconsidered cannabis' position, and some are now arguing for a change. Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services came out and said as much, asking for cannabis to be moved off of Schedule I, where it sits next to LSD and heroin.
Instead, the Department of Health and Human Services determined that cannabis should be moved to the Drug Enforcement Agency's far-less regulated Schedule III. ("Marihuana" has been a restricted "narcotic" in the U.S. since 1914 under the Harrison Act, but fell under even more severe rules under the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.)
"If it's going to be finalized at Schedule III, it's going to be the moment that the industry really is able to turn the corner and we begin to see the growth in the cannabis space amongst the legal operators that we've been waiting on for so long," David Culver, senior vice president of public affairs for the trade group U.S. Cannabis Council, told the Guardian last month.
With multiple government agencies recommending moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, the president is primed to make a change to the nation's outdated policy on cannabis.
He can bypass Congress and take meaningful action to change federal policy on cannabis. He won't legalize cannabis, but he can change decades of federal policy on cannabis.
Biden asked to be put in this position, now he must act.
